Within the Norwegian coastal metropolis of Trondheim, a sublime artwork nouveau put up workplace constructing from 1911 has been reworked into a brand new 4,000 sq m museum for contemporary and modern artwork. Named PoMo – brief for ‘Postern Moderne’ (‘the trendy put up’) – the construction was reimagined by French-Iranian architect and designer India Mahdavi, in collaboration with Norwegian architect Erik Langdalen.
‘We needed to make this an inclusive, joyful area,’ says Mahdavi, who with PoMo marks her first museum undertaking. Alongside this ambition lay the duty and need to honour the heritage of the Grade I-listed constructing. Initially designed by Norwegian architect Karl Norum, the four-storey constructing is clad in rusticated granite and mint green-painted plaster with a crowning nook turret.
(Picture credit score: PoMo museum)
Tour PoMo Museum, a revived heritage constructing with a recent assortment
When the put up workplace constructing opened over a century in the past, it was a spot the place Trondheim’s residents got here collectively, and related to the remainder of the world. This spirit of worldwide engagement, and of a civic hub, underpins PoMo because it seeks to deliver locals and guests collectively, in addition to artwork from Norway and the remainder of the world.
Mahdavi and Langdalen navigated the restrictions of the listed structure to create a brand new vivid pink entrance door, alongside an adjoining wheelchair-accessible entrance, clad in shiny copper. Perched on the roof, a beacon for the museum, is an illuminated rainbow sculpture by Ugo Rondinone, bearing the phrases of its title, Our Magic Hour (2003).
(Picture credit score: PoMo museum)
As soon as inside, guests are welcomed into the principle corridor – an arcaded but free-flowing area with excessive ceilings. It’s vivid: painted white, with new pale terrazzo flooring, and lit by considerable home windows, in addition to an octagonal illuminated skylight. Organized across the area are massive and playful sculptures by artists similar to Franz West and Katharina Fritsch.
The corridor’s authentic columns – a few of which required restoration – bear extremely ornamental, carved iconic capitals, that includes symbolic heads of kings and a postal horn motif. A wood public bench wrapped round one column recreates authentic put up workplace seating.
(Picture credit score: PoMo museum)
Mahdavi has saturated the doorway nook of the corridor salmon-pink for the reward store, considered one of many pops of color all through PoMo. One other is a big, vivid orange spiral staircase, instantly seen upon arrival. With sweeping metal curves, this punchy and sculptural gesture is the first connection for the 4 public flooring. Its type references spiral package deal chutes, whereas its hue was impressed by vernacular, painted homes close by.
The staircase and accompanying carry occupy an area that was initially a courtyard however was stuffed in after the put up workplace closed in 2011 and the constructing was used as non-public places of work. Langdalen and Mahdavi eliminated flooring and put in a glass roof to create a vivid, unifying area devoted to circulation.
(Picture credit score: PoMo museum)
Within the basement, a versatile undertaking area contains a gridded, illuminated ceiling, stainless-steel wall panels and hulking concrete columns. It’s a extra modern and minimalist design than the remainder of the museum, void of vivid colors; Mahdavi calls it ‘dramatic and cinematic’.
Ascending to the primary flooring, a sequence of gallery areas is punctuated by a brand new ‘bridge’ insertion. That includes a panoramic window, the corridor-like area invitations commentary of an outside paintings and completes a circulation loop, transversely connecting the information of the in any other case U-shaped flooring plan.
(Picture credit score: PoMo museum)
Gallery areas proceed on the second flooring, with the journey concluding in a show-stopping studying room, the place Mahdavi has leant into her love of color. An attic area clad in pine wooden, the partitions and ceilings have been painted by Dutch artist duo FreelingWaters with colors and pictures reflecting native nature, in addition to Nordic folkloric artwork: fish, squid, crustaceans, flowers, shells and books, in inexperienced, pink and yellow. The home environment, enhanced by mushy seating designed by Mahdavi, contrasts with the standard formality of a museum.
(Picture credit score: PoMo museum)
PoMo’s opening coincides with the launch of an adjoining theatre, designed by Skibnes Arkitekter. With each owned by Trondheim resident entrepreneurs Monica and Ole Robert Reitan, the ambition is about to activate this block of the town right into a buzzing cultural quarter.
(Picture credit score: PoMo museum)
india-mahdavi.com
eriklangdalen.com
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