A naked scream. New headquarters for Edvard Munch's work by Estudio Herreros

The estudio Herreros project has become one of the largest places in the world dedicated to a solo artist, standing in parallel to others such as the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, although it remains to be seen whether, despite its sought-after Guggenheim effect, the equalization will or will not be achieved, for the Norwegian artist does not enjoy the same reputation as his most famous contemporary, Van Gogh.

Recently, on the occasion of its inauguration, the praises have been numerous, with some harsh criticism such as that of The Guardian newspaper. In this controversy, let's dig a little deeper into the architecture that reflects the new Munch (its owners have intentionally removed the word "museum" from the façade).

Shape
Oliver Wainwright's comparison of the port watchtower image ("ominous grey tower on the Oslo waterfront, lurching out at the top like a military lookout post, keeping watch over the fjord") is perhaps overly explicit and simple. The references are more extensive and it is good to do a trace in our visual memory. It will surely be easier to remember the intervention of Piñón and Villaplana in the splendid reform for the creation of the CCCB of Barcelona, ​​a masterful gesture that by tilting the façade towards the patio generated an innovative way of introducing the city inside the courtyard, of to make the private public, to be able to see the city looking from the density towards the sky.

Another reference, perhaps more forgotten because it is not a cultural institution, is the Woermann plaza and tower project, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, designed by the previous Ábalos y Herreros studio, that is, before the studio broke up in 2006. It is an interesting building with intelligent references (one of them to BBVA de Oiza), and a quite similar gesture, also tilting at the end of its tower.

Much presents the same gesture and with almost the same proportion in its scenographic skyline, so it is difficult not to see the repetition of ideas. Was this formal gesture necessary in this case? Surely, because it had been the main formal reference of the author in that project in the Canary Islands or possibly as a quick graphic gesture for the resolution of a contest that had an interesting roster of participants. And as often happens in many contests, the most unexpected proposal is the winner by discarding the others.

That gratuitous gesture, copy or redundant transferred from other architectural proposals, became the most significant and iconic gesture of the project. And although the contest proposals change, and a lot, in such a lengthy drafting process, the inherited gesture became a difficult reference to change without altering the proposal.

This gesture feeds a perception of a lack of ideas suffered by some architects today, gestures of self-repetition that seek the cliché of originality, to justify an iconic competition, remembering the beginning of the century, with tall buildings raised in residential developments around "Munch".

Program
The program has been justified with a certain explanation of cultural populism. The surprising thing is that it is said that "it will not be necessary to know about art to go to the museum" ah?, but is it necessary to know about art to go to a museum? A somewhat archaic statement, I suppose that this will cause a deep questioning in those parents who take their children to museums, with a playful and not elitist vision. Those who believe that art is not high culture, it is more, that art belongs to everyone. Something that makes sense if we think that the great museums in Europe are financed and paid for with everyone's taxes, and it doesn't matter what their training is. Was it necessary to stigmatize the idea of ​​a museum of culture, to justify a proposal whose vision is close to that of an airport or shopping center? Was it necessary to resort to other architectural typologies, to reinterpret that of a museum space? It has been achieved?

If the justification of your program is that in this way the complexity of uses, especially on the ground floor, will allow a direct relationship with the neighborhood so that it becomes a nearby cultural center, some will once again wonder if to generate culture, in a neighborhood, facilities of such scale, dimensions and program are necessary. Was this energy expenditure necessary? when it is stated that 50% of the visitors will be local, in a country of little more than 5 million inhabitants. On the other hand, it is not feasible another justification for which it is thought that the program will encourage visitors to cross this space freely, because when crossing it there is nowhere to go: a cul-de-sac, water.

The project aims to be an efficient conservation machine (which prevents famous thefts such as those that caused the contest), a vertical communication system, a public space / ascending viewpoint that develops vertically, in which visitors discover another type of rooms, catering rooms, administrative units, the library or the educational center.

It is surely too early to tell if the reasons given by those who praise it excessively or by those who criticize it angrily are correct. Only time will give and take away reasons to recognize how naked or not the scream is.