The Kunstsilo Art Museum

The Kunstsilo (Eng.: art silo) project in Kristiansand is a very complex construction project. The architects Mestres Wåge in collaboration with MX_SI won the international, open competition to transform the old silos into a modern museum of contemporary art which will house the Tangen collection.

The Kunstsilo Art Museum is a major rehabilitation project in steel and concrete. Two batteries of award-winning grain silos from the 1930’s were transformed into a spectacular art museum with large, open, exhibition spaces within. The project is very complex in construction technology, especially since the building was old and the architectural concept included removal of large parts of the lower half of the silos.

The project was made possible through modern and innovative solutions and includes complicated non-linear staged construction (FEM) analysis. A key to implementing the project is to base the concept on a building method that is not cost-driven.

The environmental goals of the project were, among other things, that all buildings in connection with the Art Silo were built with the lowest possible energy requirements and to the greatest possible extent constructed with materials and solutions that in a life-cycle perspective provide low emissions of greenhouse gases.

Read the entire article in Finnish and see the images >>