The competition winners —Sordo Madaleno, építész stúdió, and Buro Happold— proposed three key areas for the new Debrecen Collections Center, distributed across three floors and a basement. These areas integrate storage spaces, specialized laboratories, and a skylit atrium where selected pieces from the museum's collection will be displayed.
The building evokes Hungary's geological and material history through the use of layered brick on its façade, opting for a solid, elongated, and rectilinear design that lends the structure an elemental and timeless character.
Debrecen Collection Centre by Sordo Madaleno, építész stúdió and Buro Happold. Image by BsArq.
Project description by Sordo Madaleno, építész stúdió and Buro Happold
Architectural concept - Building as Vessel
The New Debrecen Collection Centre follows the simple logic and elegant utility of the traditional Hungarian clay vessel: a building intended to protect and incubate. Drawing from the design team’s research into the region's craft traditions and material histories—where clay vessels and earthenware have long been used for conserving produce— the 141m by 83m elongated rectilinear building reads as a solid, elemental and timeless design.
The Centre is optimized for controlled storage, efficient research operations, and the long-term production and preservation of knowledge. The centre's defining feature is its stratified brick façade referencing Hungary's geological and material history with the soils used for the manufacturing its bricks originating from different regions of the country. The brick tones, too, create a material representation of the Collection Centre's disciplines - geology, fossils, animal life, human activity, and ecology - and its mission to understand the bio- and geodiversity of not only the Carpathian Basin but also the entire earth. These subtle variations enliven the building's monolithic form which extends the surrounding landscape with its low-lying fields and wide horizons. A discrete arrival point reinforces the notion of a building designed for security, collections care, and conservation.
The plan is radically lucid, ensuring optimal environmental and technical performance. There are three key areas over three floors and a basement level. These are divided into 28,000 sqm of storage for the archive, 6,000 sqm of study spaces including conservation laboratories, and a welcoming triple-height atrium for visiting student groups and research professionals. Within the top-lit atrium, selected items from the Museum's collection are displayed, creating an exhibitions and gallery space with adjoining lecture halls that can also be used for events. This makes it an ideal public offering for researchers, students, and educational groups. Within the study and laboratory areas most used by staff day-to-day, controlled light and ventilation is introduced through internal courtyards, thereby ensuring workspace comfort with generous views outdoors and without compromising on the rigorous museum-standard conservation requirements.
"The Centre’s staff are stewards of the objects, and the architecture becomes an extension of that stewardship. Within this layered ecology of care, the object is framed not as an isolated artefact but as an embodiment of life-worlds and landscapes that nourish reciprocal relationships. Our building reflects this mutuality, providing a space of unity between conservator, stakeholder, architecture, and environment."
Fernando Sordo Madaleno.
