Permanent Collection: Kyle Barker

An architecture museum is one of the few buildings that must be able to house and display other buildings. From the full-scale prototype to the microfiche archive, the scalar range of its collection is immense. This project harnesses the extreme dimensional difference of the objects in it’s collection to propose a building with radical shifts in section. As the ceiling height shrinks from 35’-0” to 11’-0” across five floors, the structural systems shift to accommodate larger spans, more columns, etc. With these changes comes the opportunity to recall five canonical plan organizations: the free plan, the ring (with atrium), the hypostyle hall, the forest, and the villa. As the visitor ascends—either through the glass elevator or the spiral stair—they experience pronounced material, tectonic and spatial shifts, sampling the history of Architecture on their way.