#merida spain

Roman Theatre, Mérida, Spain

Merida, Spain (World Heritage Sites) September 1986 Rafael Moneo Vallés

The museum was planned as an effort to grow awareness of the Roman history of the city of Merida. The project also included an excavation of crucial archaeological sites such as the theatre and the Amphitheatre. The excavations caused a difference in level that prompted urgency in building the museum. This would avoid further costs by using the museum as a support for the lateral thrust of the land.

“In it [Moneo] creates an architectural language that reformulates the past in terms of techniques, meanings and contents without forgetting the present. The general outline of the design is made up of two buildings separated by the Roman road and connected by an imposing walkway, which hangs over the archaeological remains. One of the two buildings houses the museum and its warehouses, which Moneo in the preliminary plan calls the museum-archives. The other one holds restoration workshops, the library, an auditorium and administrative offices. The former is made up of a “type” of main nave and a series of parallel bays, which run perpendicular to the main space. The central light filters through the structure of the ceilings and the illumination designed through the vertical ornaments is controlled and blended by the diaphragm walls that form the nave at the south end. The open windows at the north end guarantee direct light.”

The overall scheme is a repetitive system of concrete walls clad in Roman brick, penetrated by different size arches superimposed on latticework. The continuous parallel arches’ geometric values are meant to correspond to Trajan’s Arch in Merida. It is also reminiscent of a Roman Hypostyle Hall as well as of La Mesquita in Sevilla. In between are industrial sized skylights. The same continuous parallel language transforms into buttresses in the southern end of the building meant to invoke the strength and geometry of the aqueduct “Los Milagros”.  A concrete slab floor cuts through about half the main space to create upper levels for smaller scale displays. The building is accessed through an exterior arch topped by a white marble lintel and a niche.  The door features bronze bas-reliefs by Francisco Lopez.  In this way, Curtis tells us that Moneo has “spliced together real ruin with metaphorical ones, working its way back to the structural anatomy of ancient architecture and touching upon certain continuities in Spanish tradition”. In other words, Moneo blends and references the ancient and local realities with the modern, traditional, and national typologies. Curtis more plainly describes it as a “cross between a turn of the century factory and something more ancient”.  The distances in the space are hard to gauge due to the repetitive and elongated space dramatized by the beam of light hitting the end wall from a nonobvious light source.  Curtis elaborates: “ Moneo avoided the obvious references of academic classicism as well as the superficial graphic imagery of postmodernism by establishing a strong formal and tectonic order, and by oscillating back and forth between abstract and figurative readings of tradition. The museum geometry was shifted a few degrees off the excavated Roman street pattern underneath accentuating the the contrast between new and old”.

David Netto in a NYTimes Article describes Moneo’s work: “His buildings are extremely site-specific, usually physically elegant and charged with experiential surprise, often in the plan or through internal manipulations of natural light. Always born of some well-considered relation to context, Moneo’s buildings are not objects meant to promote themselves, nor do they condescend.”

And the museum: “Moneo’s structure is about the material itself. He insisted that the clay for these bricks be sourced locally, applying to architecture something akin to the “terroir” theory of cooking. A museum hovering over an archaeological site, Mérida is a building that teaches us about Roman antiquities, Roman construction methods and also modernism — specifically its potential to be expressive in the hands of a designer who is unafraid to engage the past and be inventive at the same time.”

As of now the museum is planning on expanding to feature some of the Visigoth and early Christian work of Merida. The museum is also planning to restructure some of its existing rooms as suggested by museum visitors. I personally recommend visiting the museum and the city for great archaeological and well preserved monuments and works. 

Learn More: http://museoarteromano.mcu.es/el_edificio_en.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/14/t-magazine/14well-moneo.html http://www.spainisculture.com/en/museos/badajoz/museo_nacional_de_arte_romano_de_merida.html http://www.archidose.org/Jul99/072699.html   Curtis, William J.R. <i>Modern Architecture since 1900 </i> third edition p.628.