Mimesis Museum in South Korea by Alvaro Siza

Still under construction, the new museum Mimesis in South Korea, has been designed from the outline of a cat that made the Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza. The quick sketch cat has finally become a big building fluid forms, intended to house a private collection of modern art. he new Mimesis Museum is located in Paju Book City, a new town 30 km from Seoul designed in 1999 by the Architecture Research Unit dedicated to the publishing industry, not in vain The museum houses the private collection of a book publisher art. The new Mimesis project has been carried out by Alvaro Siza, in collaboration with the architect Carlos Castanheira and Jun Sung Kim.
The organic concrete building, a sinuous form of two curved wings surrounding a courtyard, came from quick sketch of a cat that Siza drew when he first visited the site. Translate this outline to final draft has been a laborious process that has required many models, drawings, corrections, new designs, new models … So much so, that the museum was begun in 2006 and still remains unfinished, pending define the final adjustments.
The exterior is a large gray colored fluid defined by high concrete walls with few windows, surrounded by cherry trees. Inside, whitewashed walls and ceilings are living with marble floors and oak parquet. In a normal distribution and in other museums designed by Siza, the building has three floors in the basement of the services and the space for file. The temporary exhibition galleries, reception and cafe / restaurant is located on the ground floor, on which there is a loft that houses the office area. The main exhibition space is located on the first floor, fully dedicated to the exhibition galleries. Throughout the project has placed great emphasis on lighting, both natural and artificial, while working with the overhead light in the galleries is particularly noteworthy.