Kengo Kuma's Cave
John Hill
19. October 2015
Image: Kengo Kuma and Associates
Kengo Kuma and Associates has unveiled their nature-inspired design for the Museum of Indigenous Knowledge in Manila, the Philippines.
In views from the street and in the café, the renderings make the building appear invisible, lost amid a natural rock formation. Yet the natural rock formation IS the building, an arching structure with a waterfall, pond and tropical plants at its center and climbing plants covering its exterior.
Kuma's firm is quoted at Dezeen: "Based on its concept, we aim to build a natural and organic museum by combining water and green in the cave-shaped space, contrary to the image of museums as closed boxes. It is also an attempt to revive cohabitation of nature and history in the urban environment."
Café (Image: Kengo Kuma and Associates)
Unfortunately the impression of being inside a rock formation do not extend to the 9,000-square-meter museum's interiors, as this view of the atrium attests.
Atrium (Image: Kengo Kuma and Associates)
A targeted completion date, among other details on the fantastical project, are not known at this time.