West Zealand's Museum of Art
Location: West Zealand's Museum of Art
Client: Vestsjælland's County
Team: Stig L. Andersson, Lisbeth Westergaard
Collaborators: Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects, Oluf Jørgensen Consultant Engineers
Design phase: 2001
Area: 20.000 m2
Funded by the Realdania Foundation
SLA’s proposal for the landscaping around a new Museum of Art in West Zealand on the west bank of Sorø Lake takes its starting point in the existing landscape of the area. The simple, clearly-defined museum building contrasts with the varied, luxuriant character of the landscape with its dramatic landform and existing gravel pits. The visitor arrives in a kind of landscaped foyer with parking among softly shaped beech masses in sunken beds. Existing planting is supplemented with a new woodland fringe of sweet cherry and birch.
The museum looks out over the luxuriant surroundings, soft grassy meadows where the gravel pits open up like an inner landscape of close and textured experiences. The mosses, thuja and flora are retained and emphasised so that a space is created with small nature gardens between which works of art can be placed. Thus a meeting is created between garden art and sculpture. The transition from grassy meadow to gravel pit is achieved via a serpentine path, that partly follows the landform from the museum entrance down the side of a gravel pit. The path functions as a walkway, but can also be used for seating with a view of the gravel pit gardens, outdoor arrangements and sculptures.
