or
or
or pick a random keyword:

And who wants to visit a Museum?

Building Pictures, spaceworkers

Don't google it, visit it.


"And who wants to visit a museum? Isn't it just a space full of stories that had happened centuries ago? And stories about…people that were no longer alive and never have Facebook or Instagram? And why would I visit a museum, even one that used to be a church, anyway? Haven't you heard about Google yet?"

The new Building Pictures' video for the Damião de Góis Museum rises quite a paradoxical observation: in the age of social network and search engine, why should we get out from our homes? Why can't we just lay here and look out everything from our computers and smartphones?

The answer is quite simple: because museums allow us to experience things, to live spaces, to rethink our history and the history of the spaces we live in, these spaces hold a special status in our mind, that cannot be replicated by social media. Even virtual tours cannot compete with a day at the museum. And the Damião de Góis Museum is no exception: hosted in a restored church in Alenquer, Portugal it was designed by spaceworkers. The church, now emptied of this function and even if it works as a "container" space, still holds some kind of personal identity, marked by the geometry of its vaulted ceilings and the texture of its brick walls, with great plastic value. "Intervening in an existing building is in itself a good challenge, when we have added centuries of history to the pre-existence, the challenge is even greater." says the designing team. "The proposal seeks precisely to value the plastic characteristics of space and minimize its impact on pre-existence, respecting the existing, moving away from the walls, seeking a central position in space, assuming a geometry that is familiar to the building".

The video allows us to visit the complex, providing us with hints and information on the space, without giving out too much and in a quite counterintuitive modality (its best quality): stressing out the "unnecessity" to visit the museum, it tickles our curiosity, suggesting exactly why we should visit museums.

Credits

Mentioned project: Damião de Góis Museum (2016-2017)
Project location: Alenquer, Portugal
Direction, text, camera and edition: Sara Nunes
Sound design: Ana Pedro
Voice over: Will
Mother: Rita Nunes

Portugal 2018
Duration: 2'34"