New Cyprus Museum, Nicosia

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Museum as an Enclosed Garden

We propose a Museum that takes the form of an Enclosed Garden: A garden that is surrounded and defined by a boundary and is allegorically used to describe a serene and idealised natural environment, a primordial forest or an exotic nature that survives in the centuries. The Museum Garden consists of various kinds of trees that are part of the free or domestic nature of Cyprus from the pre-historic era until today and constitute a flora and fauna archaeology in situ: Ancient conifers that were traditionally used for boat-making, energy production and copper treatment since pre-history, to domestic species such as citrus trees, apricot trees, pear trees, apple trees, St. John’s bread, pomegranates, fig trees and dates, vines and mulberries, as well as fragrant herbs, like rosemary. The Garden also contains objects that were traditionally parts of gardens, such as cisterns and aqueducts, as well as structures and objects that form an open-air exhibition based on thematic subjects: the sanctuary of Venus, a house from a pre-historic settlement, an Hellenistic open-air theatre. The boundaries of the garden respond to the three different sides of the city, constituting three different reflections of the urban context. The building mass of the Museum forms the boundaries that define the enclosed space from its three sides in the form of a Triangle of buildings. The building mass itself acts as a Garden Wall, which is clearly defined at its outside and more soft and welcoming at its inside.