The results of the competition for the project of the Impossible Museum for the French system of vitrural exhibitions UMA, the Universal Museum of Art, were announced in March. Since the building is planned to be “built” in virtual reality, available on a computer as well as through virtual reality glasses, the participants in the competition were required to design a building free from physical limitations.
The jury chose two winning projects - the Russian team of the Orlovskys (Victor, Maxim and Philippe) and the Frenchman Jean-Mare Forest. The organizers decided that since they have no space restrictions, both buildings will be realized: in the spirit of surrealism and laconic monumental. The virtual implementation is scheduled for July-June; it is planned that in less than two years the museum will become the most visited museum in the world.
Victor, Maxim and Philip Orlovsky
The Orlovskys called their project "an architectural fantasy in the style of cosmoplasticism" - a trend in art associated with the idea of harmony in the planetary world. Some features of cosmoplasticism are inherent in the megaliths of Stonehenge, the pyramids of Egypt, paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael and Dali - "they all have a cosmic secret, but they have aesthetic properties associated with the ideal, with the human dream of a perfect world."
The virtual museum took the form of a "plastic megasculpture" - a huge shell with a pearl ball, standing on a truncated pyramid. A visit to the museum begins from the "plateau of arts" - a square at the cut of a giant pyramid. In plan it is a square with a side of 1000 m, with steps along the entire perimeter. The truncated pyramid will house a museum of old art, and on the plateau - a museum of the future, “a place of virtual floating crystal spaces for exhibitions, installations, holographs”.
“I have always been attracted by the pristine forms of nature: stones, shells, rocks, clouds, the sea,” says one of the authors of the project, Viktor Orlovsky. - The origins of civilization can be traced in these forms. They are endowed with indescribable ambivalent properties. This is a kind of mystery, a miracle, and intuitive communication with the great creator of nature."
The general views of the museum show other elements of cosmoplasticism: "combinations of crystal parallelepipeds, cubes, disks hovering over the plateau, including virtual expositions, symbols of ecology, symbols of life - earthly air, sunlight, water, clouds, rocks."
Jean-Marc Forest, France
The museum is formed from two simple rectangular shapes intertwined with each other and covered with a perforated titanium shell. The housings can be easily expanded if necessary.
The internal space is constructed from cubic volumes of 24x24x30 meters. Exposition cube rooms are completely darkened, giving you the freedom to work with interior lighting. The rooms are connected to each other by vertical and horizontal chains-corridors, all covered with black polished stainless steel sheets.
Access to the internal premises - the museum shop and exhibitions, is carried out from the foyer in one click.
UMA, the Universal Museum of Art, is essentially a virtual reality exhibition space that gives freedom to visitors and, to an even greater extent, curators. Its creators collaborate with traditional museums: from digitized works of art, sometimes very rare, are formed exhibitions that in reality could hardly exist.
UMA now hosts street art and an exhibition dedicated to the five greatest myths of humanity. The visitor moves from one room to another, reads accompanying texts, examines each exhibit in detail. The concept is so simple and ingenious that it is not clear why such an institution did not appear earlier.
Museum co-founder Jean Verger says: “I've always wanted to use the Internet to make art accessible, understandable and enjoyable. Many believe that art is elitist and intellectual. With the help of UMA, I want to refute this. Art is for everyone and everyone!"
