RCR Arquitectes Musée Soulages Rodez France

Located in the painter’s home town in France, the museum displays the donations of Pierre and Colette Soulages, a collection worth more than 70 million euros: one of the biggest donations ever made by a living artist to a museum.
The museum, designed by Catalan studio RCR Arquitectes, was recently awarded the Premio de Arquitectura Española Internacional 2015. It consists of 5 buildings, 5 corten steel blocks in Foirail Park not far from the centre of Rodez.

The museum has a deep-seated relationship with nature and the landscape, appearing to be perfectly integrated into its surroundings despite being perfectly recognisable as a contemporary building. Demonstrating their respect for the building’s surroundings, the architects chose steel as a material that allows them to create different nuances on different surfaces: red on the outside to recall the colour of the walnut tree trunks, with rough black pickled steel on the inside to create the more intimate atmosphere needed to contemplate the artist’s works.
The layout of Musée Soulages also demonstrates respect for its surroundings, for the building fits discretely into the public park of Foirail. On the southern side, where the entrance hall is located, the façade is no more than 3 metres high. On the northern side, on the other hand, it is livened up by overhanging volumes and panes of glass that are set back to mediate the relationship with the street, on a lower level.

(Agnese Bifulco)

Design: RCR Arquitectes (R.Aranda, C.Pigem, R.Vilalta / G.Trégouët) http://www.rcrarquitectes.es/
Location: Rodez, France


Images Musée Soulages crédits Grand Rodez 2014 / C. Méravilles

http://musee-soulages.rodezagglo.fr/

---

GALLERY