A museum for Soulages, the French painter of “light” who has inspired us so often, was –and still is- a cherished dream. In the town where he was born. Soulages can be seen for what he is: his approach, his attitude and his involvement. Forail, boulevard and backbone for a topography that overlooks the surrounding countryside and the distant mountains, is to be his place.
When Pierre Soulages, the greatest living painter in France, announced his intention to manage the construction of a museum in his home town Rodez in which it would be shown an important donation of the his work from his private collection, a huge amount of architectural offices entered the competition. Four teams made the cut: Marc Barani, Paul Andreu, Kengo Kuma and RCR. The main difference between the winning proposal (RCR) and the other three is the very concept of intervention, differentiated from the other by two main features. The first of them was the way of conceiving the location and the second the relationship between the building and the work to be exhibited.

Five boxes of varying height and measurement are inserted into the ground and accommodate various elements of the collection: works on paper, studies for the stained glass windows of the Conques Abbey, and some selected pictures. Another of these boxes form access and temporary exhibition hall adjacent and last, located at the east end, almost free, the last piece of the museum towards the center, houses a restaurant run by Sébastien and Michel Bras, located at ground level from the city.

Three of these boxes are inserted inside of a grand hall that forms the exhibition space, extending from the west end of the building to access the volume. The primary structure of the hall consists of a series of concrete girders each arranged 1.80 meters that leave a window that is opened to the strict north, where the scenery and views are, and which leverages the metal pillars supporting the beams and pillars are formed by whole-free glass transoms, which are echoed on the pavement steel room, which projects under each jácena a plate under which a series of perforations to extend cables can be done and prepared for the purpose of hanging exempt works: the structural system itself gives the exhibition lighting system flexibility. Concrete structure boxes are cover with steel plates sheathes that in the outside get cover with rust while in the inside appear bright, polished and with visible steel inimitable waters. On these walls the works can be hung with magnets.

The ceiling of the room gets lower where it is buried (south), as it has over it a band with workshops and administrative offices that are lightened and ventilated by a protected window that forms the base of the building. The variability of roof heights gives a multiplicity of ways of perceiving the work exposed and, without affecting the characteristics of the exhibition space, it becomes more complex causing (without any artifice) a multiplicity of very powerful feelings.

Inside the boxes we find the same structural system rotated ninety degrees here, accompanied by the same paving system (made of the same material) for hanging works inside the boxes in the same way. The system ceiling is based on a direct expression of the structure and inside the boxes, which are blind, a skylight is practiced in each structural gap. Natural light is thus present throughout the building, not used to illuminate the works directly but as a way of raising the building by the hour. Light, inside the boxes, helps defining the space and the ceiling height. It is the accuracy of the module and the structure. Light, outside boxes, is backlit. The window connects us with the sky, with distant mountains, as they are loncated at a higher level than the one of the eye. Light is  the relationship with the elements and the nature. Light is a break between work and play.
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Architects
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RCR ARQUITECTES / Carme Pigem, Ramon Vilalta , Gilles Trégouét, Rafael Aranda
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Collaborators
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P. Cariven, F. Fourel, Maurici Ginés, Patrick Laugier, Yann Lodey, Philippe Maffre, Roman Passelac, François Roques
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Area
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7.500m2 (site)/ 6.100m2 (building)
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Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta, work together since 1988 under the name RCR ARQUITECTES in Olot. They are Premio Nacional de Cultura en Arquitectura 2005 by Generalitat de Catalunya, Chevaliers de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by Republique Française in 2008, honorary members by the AIA American Institute of Architecture 2010 and International Award 2011 "Belgian Building Awards". Since 1989 are architects advisors at Parque Natural de la Zona Volcánica de la Garrotxa and have been teachers of Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture and Project. They have won different international competitions (the latter, the Waalsekrook media library in Belgium, the Soulages museum in France, Hofheide's crematorium in Belgium and The Edge Bussiness Bay in Dubai). They have received awards in his work among which two finalists positions in the awards of the European Union Mies Van der Rohe. Some of their awarded works have been exhibited in different events and published in several monographs.

RCR has shown the ability to think and transform that bring teamwork and the promotion of cultural initiatives from Bunka Foundation and workshops within the LAB-A in the Espacio Barberí, and have proven that it is possible to do international architecture from a rural environment, which is what has stimulated his imagination.

Following the work of RCR there is a philosophy which works for harmony between humans and nature. The most advanced technologies and materials such as steel or glass, with established rhythms and light that acts in opposition to each, are those that allow RCR this return to the essence of space that is the subject of architecture.

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Published on: June 25, 2016
Cite: "Soulages Museum by RCR Arquitectes" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/soulages-museum-rcr-arquitectes> ISSN 1139-6415
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