The Water Museum of Palencia by MID estudio

The Water Museum of Palencia, a city community of Castilla y Leon in Spain, designed by young architects and Maier Amatriain David Serrano Velez Olabarria of MID estudio was inaugurated recently.
The museum is part of a first phase of implementation of the redevelopment of an area of the city forgotten for years, aiming at more ambitious project to restore the dock of the Canal de Castilla.
The building for reform is one of the warehouses that line the dock line, rectangular of 62.4 x 10.3 m. It is a masonry load-bearing concrete with a layer of face-brick exterior view and a marked rhythm of doors and windows. The roof is composed of a regular pattern of wood trusses with metal rods.

The project aims to establish the MID estudio, through the language of architecture, the link between the content of the museum, abstract in its wording, and the mainland, neutral in its original configuration. A skylight that runs lengthwise on the roof, forms the backbone of the various museum spaces, illuminating each of them and giving it meaning. This element is juxtaposed to the existing structure without altering, adapting to its strict modulation, so that both structures, the old and new, are mutually complementary. Of the “boxes” suspended leading natural light inside.

The exhibition is divided into three areas: the lobby, administration and services and the space for temporary exhibitions and permanent. The same spatial configuration nave, narrow and long, down the path through these spaces so that visitors discover them using the same order.

After signing in and reception, an independent block, covered in glass to be dematerialized by a play of reflections, is home to the administration, facilities, restrooms and a small warehouse. The visitor must turn yourself around to enter the museum.

After this first area you have access to space for temporary exhibitions. This is a versatile space open, which can be adapted to a variety of activities, exhibitions, conferences, etc.. The light overhead, which varies during the day and seasons the light freely.

A blade of water through the temporary exhibition hall until the permanent exhibition space, located at the end of the trail, forcing the visitor to walk around. The “light boxes” on the ceiling illuminate only the blade of water, making this space more tenuous and harvest and constitute the support for the permanent exhibition, organized through interactive audio-visual projections. The presence of real and tangible sound generated in water and its flow is an integral part of the sensory experience of the museum.

With the same objective of the skylight, the openings of the existing building are occupied by structures that guide and filter light inside, as in the case of windows, and direct gaze, such as doors, which take shape in the beyond the thick walls, small spaces for relaxing in the manner of classic miratore Spanish.