Museum Of Brazil And Entrepreneurship

Museum Of Brazil And Entrepreneurship
Museum Of Brazil And Entrepreneurship

Video: Museum Of Brazil And Entrepreneurship

Video: Museum Of Brazil And Entrepreneurship
Video: Brazil: The restoration efforts at the national museum in Rio 2024, March
Anonim

An oval structure, a glass volume under a steel roof on thin supports serves as a memorial center for the company's campus. It is named "Fortaleza Hall" in honor of the Brazilian city where in 1935 the then owner of the firm H. F. Johnson found a valuable source of natural wax - the carnauba palm tree: then on its basis he began to produce advanced household chemicals for their time, still since then - the main products of the company. In addition to H. F. Johnson, the new building celebrates the achievements of his son Sam, who died in 2004, as well as the unique position of S. C. Johnson”as the owner of two of Wright's key buildings - the administrative building with overhead lighting and supports of organic forms in the interior (1936) and the laboratory tower (1950) - therefore a small library-archive was created there with valuable documents and publications on the architect's work.

Foster was faced with the task of including the new structure into the existing ensemble: after the middle of the 20th century, no large buildings were erected there. He managed to strike a balance between a careful attitude to the great predecessor and the implementation of his own original plan. As a criticism of Wright's buildings, one can consider the transparency of Fortaleza Hall, since neither the tower nor the administrative building are distinguished by their openness to the outside, and the latter is completely devoid of windows. At the same time, the organic outline of the plan and the limestone cladding of the facades of The Commons building, adjacent to the "Fortaleza Hall" from the back, formally connects the new structure with the neighboring architectural monuments. The Commons houses various institutions for the needs of the company's employees (cafe, store, bank branch, gym).

Fortaleza Hall itself is divided into 3 levels. Its lower tier is underground: employees enter the building from other campus buildings through underground corridors. There begins the "atrium", which occupies almost the entire internal space of the building. It features a mixed wood mosaic on the floor, depicting a map of the Americas with the route from Wisconsin to Brazil marked on it. High above it, under glazed ceilings, is an amphibious aircraft, a copy of the S-38 Sikorsky used by H. F. Johnson in 1935; this airplane, called "Carnauba", was built in 1998 by Sam Johnson who flew to Brazil in memory of his father. The walls of the room are made of white concrete and are covered with reliefs depicting South American flora. There are real examples of it: from the first to the second floor, a staircase leads to the balcony of the cafe, which on one side is closed by a waterfall over a small pond, on the other - a green wall with 2500 Brazilian plants of 79 different species (area 15 mx 5.5 m), the work of Patrick Blanc, the author of the green facade of the Parisian Museum on Quai Branly and many other similar projects. The Brazilian theme is completed by a sound composition composed of the sounds of nature and urban life of this country; its sound changes depending on the time of day and weather.

Recommended: