Description
Colonia Augusta Emerita, now Mérida, is one of the most important cities of the Roman empire on the Iberian peninsula; its remains – among them a theatre and an amphitheatre – are currently being excavated. The museum, erected on a part of the excavation site with the remains of a Roman settlement, seeks not only to be a neutral container for the archaeological finds, but as a part of the ancient site, also seeks to elucidate the fundamental principles of the architectural culture that belongs to the objects kept there. Thus Rafael Moneo makes the characteristics of Roman architecture, the feeling for the monumental space and structural solidity into the determining factors for his museum building which, moreover, because of its situation, represents the connecting link between the field of classical ruins and the fringes of today’s city.
His building is laid out in two clearly distinguishable parts, the administrative wing that adopts the dimensions of the neighbouring residential development, and the actual museum block itself, much bigger, that stands on top of an excavation site accessible from the museum and separated from it by a ceiling. On the entrance side, the strictly rectangular ground plan of the museum overlaying the structure of the Roman development follows in the form of a stairway the course of the street, whereby a graduated series of buttressed walls is created, which are to point programmatically to Roman construction principles. The brickwork of the entire museum is executed using the technique favoured by the Romans, opus caementitium, a brick shell filled with concrete. It is the arches, however, that really are the epitome of the Roman incantatory formula – they lend the interior a monumental simplicity. Room-height archway openings cut enfilade-like into brick walls parallel with each other and six metres apart create the spatial effect of looking down the length of a nave in which the most valuable objects are displayed. Naturally lit by glass gable roofs and windows placed high on the walls, the corridors running across the main nave between these walls are laid out by means of corridors and galleries on several levels, which enable one to experience the spatial structure of intercrossed wall and arch systems again and again.
Arquitectura 5-6/1984, pp. 23-45 (Javier Frechilla) • Casabella 4/1984, pp. 52-63 (Giacomo Polin) • Werk, Bauen + Wohnen 12/1984, pp. 18-23 (Paolo Fumigalli) • The Architectural Review 1065/1985, pp. 38-47 (Peter Buchanan) • Lotus International 46/1985, pp. 22-35 (Francesco Dal Co) • Suzanne Stephens (ed.), Building the New Museum, New York, 1986, pp. 66-69 • Baumeister 2/1987, pp. 13-21 • Laurence Allégret, Musées, Paris, 1987, pp. 94-105 • Lluisa López Moreno/José Ramon López Rodríguez/Fernando Mendoza Castells (eds.), El Architecto y el Museo, Jerez, 1990, pp. 320-329 (Enrique de Teresa) • Rafael Moneo. Bauen für die Stadt, Vienna Exhibition Catalogue, Stuttgart, 1993, pp. 46-53 • Josep M. Montaner/Jordi Oliveras, Museums for a New Century, Barcelona, 1995, pp. 80-83
Drawings
Basement plan with the Roman ruins overlaid by the new building structure
Ground floor with the central nave
Third floor with circular path through the exhibition space
Longitudinal section
Axonometric view of the room plan
Photos
General view of the administration buildings and the museum (from the southeast)
View of the great hall
Originally published in: Paul von Naredi-Rainer, Museum Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2004.