Schenker Salvi Weber — Museum Belvedere Salzburg

▶▶X Schenker Salvi Weber

Museum Belvedere SalzburgGeneral Planner Competition 2021
1st Prize
“A Light Well for Salzburg” “The iconographic light well in the inner courtyard of the ‘Neue Residenz’ is the guiding principle of this scheme, drawing analogies to the historic ‘Giardino Segreto’ and the traditional ‘Salzburger Durchhäusern’. Thus, a spectacular as well as contemplative public space is generated in the heart of the historic centre of Salzburg.”“The light well is a centrifugal joint between the above, below, interior and exterior, Heaven and Earth. The element of water in all its aggregates cools in summer and composes the acoustic backdrop.”“The staircase, connecting the exhibition rooms of the Belvedere Museum vertically, is integrated into the historic fabric of the 17th century ‘Neue Residenz’. The historic atrium is retained and the vaulted ceiling carefully exposed, preserving its heritage.”“Visitors enter the two courtyards of the ‘Neue Residenz’ from three sides through the grand early-Baroque portals either from ‘Residenzplatz’ or ‘Mozartplatz’ or from ‘Kaigasse.’”“As the defining feature of the inner courtyard, the light well evolves into an overscaled skylight conically staggered towards the exhibition level, creating a concise architectural urban space.”“On the exhibition level the art should take centre stage, concrete and the luminous ceiling form the functional backdrop.”The structural engineering for this project is challenging. The existing foundations are lowered using a jet grouting process. This ensures that the planned inner courtyard can be implemented. This construction method has been tried and tested, as it was already used for the first courtyard of the Salzburg Museum.
The inner courtyard itself will be constructed as a white tank. The floor slab, walls and ceilings will be assembled using cast-in-situ concrete. The ceiling covering the inner courtyard will be constructed using wide-span ribbed slabs, a suitable space for HVAC-systems to be installed.
The large, new staircase also uses the above-mentioned construction method to lower the historic, load-bearing vaulted structure. Load-dissipating masonry pillars are underpinned on the ground floor above with steel beams.

“Trees with tall slender trunks spread a green canopy over the courtyard, creating a subtle interplay between light and shadow, reminiscent of the treatment of light in historical landscape paintings.”The material palette adopts the theme of building into the ground. The load-bearing walls and four visible pairs of beams with their supports will be cast-in-situ with a fair-faced concrete finish. The cementitious, polished flooring is set off from the perimeter walls with a groove and thus accentuates the strength of the perimeter wall. The flooring slab is generously articulated congruently to the alignments of the beams. The luminous ceiling floats gently and precise like an artificial sky above the room. P R O J E C T D E T A I L S