ODUNPAZARI MODERN MUSEUM, ESKIȘEHIR, TURKEY
A New Landmark, a Bridge between Past and Present
Kengo Kuma & Associates
The Turkish word Odunpazari means “wood market”: the museum sits on the point where wood was once traded in the city. This material, which plays an important role in local building traditions, is assigned a leading role in the design of the museum. The new complex is an aggregation of parallelepiped volumes of different dimensions, whose forms and proportions reflect those of the adjacent buildings. Kengo Kuma substantially employs two design moves: overlapping, through which architecture speaks to the urban scale, and rotation, used to create the urban spatial characteristics of the Ottoman house with its cantilevered upper volume. Present inside and outside the building, wood is the material that unifies the entire project. Each volume is clad in parallel laminated pine wood beams that establish a continuity with the horizontality of the surrounding homes. Wood is the true leitmotif of the project, in all of its technical and conceptual aspects.
