The Archival Block
Site: RISD Museum of Art
Fall 2022 Core 1
Instructor: Evan Farley
The RISD Museum is currently made up of 5 buildings that have been connected in varying ways. Even with all that space about 96% of the art RISD has is tucked away in the archives. The goal of my proposed sixth extension is to provide a place to store as much work as possible in an accessible way. This extension would act as a bunker or more accurately a blockhouse: an above-ground bunker, allowing visitors and students to get lost as they meander through different spaces of storage. The form of my museum was derived from that of my other project, The Parts for Play Pavillion. I carried through the ideas of overlapping geometry, pushing it further by exploring how the shapes intersect creating spaces of in-between. Traditionally these spaces would be designated in an architectural floor plan with a poché. My project explores how this space in between can be utilized in a productive way creating new ways of storing and interacting with art.