Francisco “Patxi” Mangado, the 54-year-old Spanish architect, compares his bronze-clad Archaeological Museum of Álava in Vitoria, Spain, to a “coffer guarding a treasure.” He has developed this apparently simple conceit at a number of different levels in the work, so that it acquires a sensual resonance that reaches beyond words to convey his poetic intent.
The “coffer” is composed of three gallery levels housing the permanent collection, with floors, walls, and ceilings finished in dark wenge wood. Five narrow glass shafts bring in daylight, descending from the roof to pierce all three floors at different angles. The galleries, featuring regional relics from prehistoric times to the Middle Ages, evoke an unexplored archaeological site, an underground mine, or a sunken ship. As visitors wander among the translucent shafts, spotlights tripped by movement sensors illuminate objects and vitrines. “The interior couldn’t simply be a well-organized space or a handsome play of forms,” Mangado explains. “It had to be capable of suggesting places and people with, say, a small fragment of clay that speaks to us of fragility and time.”
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