Natural History Museum, CH-Locarno
The Natural History Museum of the Canton of Ticino was founded in 1853 and is currently located in Lugano. The museum will now be housed in a former monastery in the immediate vicinity of Locarno’s historic center and expanded to include a new building.
The old and new buildings are connected by a courtyard-like outdoor space. This area is framed by a pergola, and its dimensions are reminiscent of the existing monastery courtyard. It serves as the spatial hub and acts as a distribution point to all areas and functions of the museum.
The monastery’s historic structure, which dates primarily from the 17th century, will serve as the main entrance, the café, and the library — without requiring any major alterations to the existing building structure. To the west, a four-story new building extends, housing the functional spaces required for a modern museum, such as exhibition halls, museum education facilities, an auditorium, and storage areas.
The large garden complex surrounding the complex as it extends up the hillside will be open to the public and can also be used as a north-south thoroughfare outside of regular opening hours. The perimeter wall that already surrounds the property will become a defining feature of the new building’s architecture.
The resulting abstraction and the façade design — which features no visible window openings — reinforce the perception of the delicate existing structure and its significance as the main building. Through subtle adjustments to the volume and the fanning out of wall panels, the scale of the new building is modulated, allowing it to blend harmoniously into the existing urban context.
