The National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage was conceived as architecture unfolding in continuity with its surrounding landscape. Situated within a gentle valley formed between two mountain ridges, the project is organized as a series of horizontal layers traversing the site—from public spaces facing the road, through conservation and research areas, to the more private dormitory at the rear. Abstracted as a sequence of linear bar buildings, the architecture is aligned with the flow of the valley and its geological strata, allowing architecture and landscape to operate as a single, continuous system.
Rather than being placed upon the site, the architecture is drawn along it. The trench excavation method used in cultural heritage archaeology identifies potential reference points within a broad field of dispersed artifacts and gradually expands its scope through linear excavations. This approach constructs relationships and connections through calculated conjecture, evoking Marcel Duchamp’s Network of Stoppages. The arrangement of the buildings is likewise inscribed into the terrain as layered lines in which precision and chance coexist. Like a detective following subtle clues, these lines slip, overlap, and slightly misalign, gradually blurring the boundary between architecture and landscape.
The competition guidelines required the design to be composed of two separate buildings, separating the administrative and research functions. Our strategy, in response, was to integrate the two programs into a single mass, while introducing a generous air-circulation space between them, allowing the building to remain functionally separated yet spatially connected as a unified volume. Believing that information related to cultural heritage should be more readily accessible within the public realm, the library was planned as an independent building with a clear public presence.
Positioned adjacent to the road, the library reveals knowledge as part of the public domain, while its partially buried form suggests the incompleteness of what is known and the necessity of continuous inquiry. Like cultural heritage itself, knowledge is not a finished entity, but something that must be continuously excavated over time.
The library building is constructed through the layered stacking of slate stone, evoking the gradual accumulation of information. The façade of the administrative building is composed of patterned concrete panels, etched as if tracing material traces, while the research areas are wrapped in concrete and metal panels. The uppermost level, housing programs related to intangible cultural heritage as well as the dormitory, is finished in wood siding, allowing the architecture to harmonize with the surrounding forest.
