The "scipath" collection 11_07_18

All matters are equal. From the molecular level, animals, plants, “non-living” objects like water and rocks.The world is not a playground of human beings. These constantly moving yet bonded together matters, forming you and me, is forming the matters around us too. No one is “special”, nothing is “special.” In fact, why bother naming them differently? One could argue that human species are special because they reason, yet there’s no way to proof a feather from a bird, a drop from the sea, or the peeled off tag from your amazon package does not reason. The world could be much more complicated than human species have understanded.

However, a human still I am. As an architect, I am trained to find problems and solutions. The problem of human species, emerging as civilization develops, might be the ignorance for equality and arrogance to realize this as a problem. Museum, a public space for education, is in danger to maintain their sole purpose. Many of them are on a high speed train to becoming dull wunderkammers satisfying human fetish for their own creations, if no one pulls the wheel.

Extraction: celebration, exhibition, and sharing from physical objects to information

Liberation: grant sufficient space for the public, the staff, the artifacts, as well as light, air, and soil.

Merge: soften the order and barriers in classical style, create organic shaped circulation. Blur the boundary between programming and structural.

Penn museum was designed in convention of romanesque cathedrals in 1899. Appropriating historical styles in civic buildings like libraries and government buildings was popular in the United States. Designers believed historical styles could represent order and dignity. However this might also consciously or unconsciously create hierarchy.

The new structure will be storage and transportation device for artifacts, columns, part of facades, mezzanines, and canopy.