As the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro steadily gears up for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, there are a lot of interesting structures coming up in the land of carnival. The most recent addition was the Art Museum of Rio, popularly called MAR, which opened March 5.
Conceptualized, created and developed by Brazilian design firm, Bernardes + Jacobsen Arquitetura, MAR is a beautiful collaboration of three unused buildings that now houses a stunning art gallery and an art school as well.
Located in Rio's Port area, the art gallery occupies the renovated and re-invented interiors of an old twentieth-century palace called "Palacete Dom João". The art museum is spread across a four-level building that has eight double-height galleries.
On the other hand, the art school popularly known as "Escola do Olhar" takes up the place adjacent to the art museum, which was initially an old police building. The school has three floors of classroom space with workshop and exhibition rooms on the first floor, an auditorium and a library on the fourth level.
Both the buildings have an upper rooftop level with a bar, which will host leisure and cultural events. A wave like structure covers both the buildings, making it look like a covering sheet.
The firm's official website reads:
"Our challenge was to unite three existing buildings with different architectural characteristics to house the Museu de Arte do Rio, the school "A Escola do Olhar" as well as cultural and leisure spaces. The existing buildings, the palace "Palacete Dom João", the police building and the old central bus station of Rio, connected shall be part of the major urban redevelopment in the historic downtown of Rio de Janeiro. For each construction we analyzed different levels of preservation.
Check out the floor plan at Dezeen.
