DESA1002 'Nine Quarter City' - <Dong Hee Kim>

Abstract

My project “Mosaic Museum of Tunis” began from the very first research on the country, Tunisia. During the research, I have found out that Tunisia is particularly proud to claim one of the world’s richest collections of ancient mosaics. I found this very interesting and I decided to work on building a contemporary mosaic museum. The “Mosaic Museum of Tunis” is located in the centre of my site which represents the urban area of Tunis. My site is divided into a two large areas by the main road which cuts through the center of the site. My site plan is originally based on some of the pictures of Tunis that I have found during the research. Working on my programme was one of the most difficult parts. Since circulation plays a very important role in museum, connecting four separate cubical buildings was the most challenging part of my project. This difficulty could be overcome during my precedent studies. The Abteiberg museum in Germany provided me an interesting idea of connecting the separated cubical building, and as a result, I could join my separated buildings without using bridges. Studying Bardo Museum in Tunisia was also very helpful in designing my programme. The Bardo museum was separated in different sections to present mosaic in different time period of Tunisian history. I thought this was quite a good idea so I have designed my building in a way that each separate part of the buildings presenting different mosaics, representing the different time period of Tunisian history. Also the Canadian National Museum suggested me an idea of having a view down to the first floor from the second floor. This lead me not to divide the first and second level by floor so that the tourists can look down from the upper floor to visualize the difference in mosaics created in different time period. Also it is important to note that there is a clear connection between the building itself and what is inside the building. The overall shape of the building represents the mosaic and its dynamic characteristic. The building is orientated in a way that there is no difficulty in sunlight reaching into the building. The third level is supposed to get the maximum spotted sunlight with a sloped concrete mosaic roof highlighting the purpose and intention of the building.