New Coach Museum opens to the public today – Vision

Suddenly, after many postponements, we have a new framework for the city: there the background the tops of the trees of the Garden of Empire Square senses to silhouette the Jeronimos Monastery, the river is done running, the Monument of Discoveries stands on the far left, and right, the presidential Belem Palace opens up to others’ curiosity, revealing rows of checkered windows, graceful statues, shrubs care, watchful choreography round of the guards.

This unexpected panorama is offered by a large tear in seemingly closed architecture, the way to a safe, the new Coach Museum, designed by Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, in partnership with the studios of the Portuguese Ricardo Bak Gordon and Nuno Sampaio. It is not the only surprise nestled between white and geometric walls. With inauguration scheduled for this Saturday, 23, this resolutely contemporary museum space with modernist and brutalist echoes, straight lines and structure based on columns with open square under and around either “make city from the architecture.” Words architect Ricardo Bak Gordon, with past and broad gesture, a recognition visit, be saves to explain the lines and design flows: the “urban view” provided by the building; “dialogue between the city and the museum,” made possible by the creation of “places and spaces that will be crossed daily by the people”; the effort patent on the unique engineering of concrete slabs without joints, the two rooms where patents are the coaches; the balconies of the rooms, designed for a comprehensive overview of the collection; the auditorium stage at ground level seats and run like the common garden benches, diluting the boundaries between interior and exterior, and where a car could enter – the example is the Bak Gordon himself.

The building is a union of two blocks, with transparencies on one side and protective cocoon of the other, and its added value also includes the architectural spectacle – the hallmark of all contemporary metropolis. It is a box “outside the box” for cultural and museum most remarkable event of the decade.

“E pur si muove! ‘

Open the box, the treasure is still label. The work is not completely finished but the museum will open anyway. From paper to the street, it remains to complete the pedestrian bridge that connects the new museum to the river bank, over the Avenida da India and the train line (say that those responsible will be completed by mid-2016). For now, only a white metal tongue suspended. Under the structure, extends a broad public space, paced by the pillars, the house so supported in palafíticas stakes. No stores, but hopefully these will emerge (the ice cream parlor Santini has scored place and open already there in early June). No other calendar events or even temporary exhibitions, but, if you wish it, these will happen one day. The coaches, these are already arranged in two imposing, bare wings, a minimalist logic, contrasting with time device practiced in the old Royal Riding School. There will be, in all, 78 pieces – coaches, Berlins, Carriages, chairs, carts, sedan chairs, carriages … – on display, compared to 55 in the old museum (which will remain open, displaying now four coaches and four Berlins).

Silvana Bessone, current director of the Coach Museum, brings the possibility of now we can watch these pieces in a 360 degree angle, saying, allows details to the discovery that so far passed unnoticed. But the full museum project will still be missing: it is expected, for example, that the total information about each car is only available at the end of the year.

Before returning to the road and undertake the short journey to a new home, these inventions of yesteryear have been restored by the hands of a team against the clock, working to the sound of classical music. “It was a privilege to be in this group that brings together the best experts to work on this project. I would almost that this work did not end ever, by rewarding as it has been,” confides the VISION Rita Dargent, restoration specialist. It was she who, at the press visit, proudly showed the new space reserves and workshops: rows and aisles of harnesses, hats, tassels, uniforms, equestrian ornaments, accessories and anachronistic romantic, impeccably tidy and closely monitored for temperature control systems .

Upstairs, valuable coaches show up organized chronologically, starting with the coach of Philip II, dating from the late sixteenth century – before stored in Viçosa Village Museum, where they came from 25 hipomóveis – and terminating with a symbol of progress in the form of a post carriage. “A journey through the evolution of real transport in Portugal since the sixteenth century to the early twentieth century,” summarizes Silvana Bessone.

David and Goliath

Jorge Barreto Xavier, secretary of state for culture, told reporters that despite this incompleteness, “the museum has to open and be enjoyed,” be a living organism. Also assuming the role of institutional asset, realize themselves. The date of opening of the Coach Museum was not chosen at random, and underlined the symbolic significance of this May 23 that 110 years ago, marked another inauguration: the so Museo Coach Reaes the Royal Riding School, by the hand of Amelia Orléans-Braganza, wife of King D. Carlos I, which brought together a collection of cars from various cuts. Only in 1910, with the establishment of the Republic, the space would take the designation of National Coach Museum, whose collection is considered the most important worldwide. It is perhaps disconcerting that, after so much anxiety around the scale of this new work is realized that, after all, the beautiful riding arena Real will continue to work with the same functions to “evoke his memory” – the big brother now dwarfed leaning box over Bethlehem.

The white walls for debut, the smell of new, glasses polished to invisibility, the expectation of a new architectural element in the landscape has faded a bit … After all, the works were , largely completed in 2012. We have become used to pass by that volume seated beside the traffic lights and Belem train station. An animal asleep in the landscape. “The years of crisis experienced in 2011 prevented a faster opening”, recalls Xavier Barreto. THE VISION, emphasizes: “We had to manage an active relevant in exceptional conditions.” It argues that the building “did not suffer deterioriação not to use, but all new buildings can have problems, and were in fact detected problems that are still covered by the guarantee of work.” Having voiced on several occasions, expressed a preference for an investment in the National Museum of Ancient Art or a new center dedicated to the history of Portugal, Secretary of State summarizes: “When we have done the work, it is our obligation to do the best possible with she. ” And admits that the current boom of tourism in Portugal “is a good coincidence” that, together with the appreciation of the Belém-Help axis, may help to enhance investment. Objective: more than 350,000 visitors a year, a “conservative and sober perspective”, underlines this responsibility. The State, that will keep a backup of € 500,000 annually, trusting that other accounts can be balanced by sponsorship, gate receipts, goodwill of private.

Asked about the huge delay the inauguration of his work, the Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha responds with diplomacy and elegance, preferring to emphasize the “party” which is the opening of a device of this size, and it symbolizes says the union between the two Portuguese-speaking countries. It will be beautiful to party, man?