Demolish or preserve? This was a key question in the architectural competition launched by the Swiss canton of Vaud in 2011 for its new art museum building at Lausanne’s central train station. For decades, the site had been occupied by an old train depot, whose halls seemed predestined for museum use. But the old must yield to the new, decided Barozzi Veiga of Barcelona, whose design convinced the competition jury. Running parallel to the rails, the Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts (MCBA) is now housed in an understated, longitudinal volume, slightly higher than wide, with beige-grey brickwork and nearly windowless on its south side. This introversion may seem radical, but it has advantages for the museum’s indoor climate and helps to shape the urban space.
The northern facade, which faces the upward sloping residential district, is animated by a dense array of vertical sunshades, reminiscent of the flying buttresses of Gothic churches. Approaching the building from the east from the main station, the facade seems entirely closed. Only when passing by does it appear to fan out and reveal the inner workings of the museum through its windows: the ground floor is lined with the museum shop, café, auditorium, administrative offices and a hall for contemporary art. Although the exhibition spaces on the upper level are windowless, there are full-length panoramic windows in the stairwells and anterooms with views of the city and Lake Geneva.
A new museum quarter
The architects’ demolition strategy has created a level public space in front of the museum, which is a rarity in the hilly city centre of Lausanne. This will also benefit the second new building, designed by Aires Mateus, which is currently under construction to the west of MCBA. Due to open in 2021, it will be home to the Mudac design museum and Musée de l’Elysée photography museum, joining MCBA to form a new arts district.
Barozzi Veiga have not erased all traces of the past: the entrance preserves the old railway turntable and old tracks are still visible in the forecourt. The most striking relic is on the museum’s south side, where a part of the old locomotive hall is attached to the angular monolith like a small transept. With its large arched window divided into small sections by glazing bars, it lends atmosphere to the museum’s entrance hall, where a towering tree sculpture by the Italian sculptor Giuseppe Penone rises in the middle.
The exhibition halls on the upper floors extend over the entire modest depth of the building, as do the three single-flight staircases. While the exhibitions on the first upper level are shown with purely artificial lighting, the exhibition areas on the uppermost floor receive natural light through north-facing pitched skylights.
The range of materials used inside is of a similarly elegant simplicity as the exterior: off-white plastered walls, light terrazzo floors in the access areas and oak parquet flooring in the exhibition halls, plus angular handrails made of brushed stainless steel and – as the “only luxury” in the building, according to museum director Bernard Fibicher – room-high doors made of walnut wood. The cost of MCBA, Fibicher adds, was just half as much per cubic metre of converted space as other Swiss museums.
