Tehran’s Argo Manufacturing unit advanced reinvents brewery architecture for the arts
The Argo Manufacturing facility Contemporary Artwork Museum & Cultural Centre by Ahmadreza Schricker Architecture North (ASA North), housed in a redesigned brewery, results in being Tehran’s initial new arts hub in many years
Argo Manufacturing unit Modern Artwork Museum & Cultural Centre, the first hub of its variety to be constructed in Tehran in in excess of 40 years, was done and owing to launch in 2020. Still because of to the pandemic and regional political situation in Iran, it’s only now that the team powering it, Iranian-Austrian architect Ahmadreza Schricker, founder of ASA North, and his customer, Pejman Foundation, are able to celebrate its opening.
The project is the bold conversion of the 1920s Argo Factory – a 480 sq m brewery in downtown Tehran – into a 1,850 sq m home for the arts. The majestic, superbly monolithic creating complex now spans six gallery halls, an auditorium, a library, artist residency and event spaces, a personal studio condominium, retail, and a VIP observation deck – there is even a re-issued Argo non-alcoholic draft beer bar.
The task was portion restoration, portion new build, as the architecture workforce, which includes collaborating architects Hobgood Architects (headed by Patrick Hobgood) who were concerned in the project’s notion period, had to stability the tightrope among previous and new. The current foundations experienced to be bolstered (at places entirely rebuilt) and the brick materiality of the in general intricate maintained. At the exact time, 5 new, pitched concrete roof constructions now top the centre and a new 70 sq m, concrete-clad framework houses the artist residency places. ’I do not worship Argo, with its several industrial architectural twins all over the world, I appreciate Argo. In 2017, the factory’s roofs ended up lacking and as a signal of respect for the outdated, we positioned 5 new floating roofs on leading of the remaining construction. Natural light flows in from the articulated break up between previous and new, and the recently inserted structural basis permits the floating architectural “hats” to give an additional character to an presently potent individuality,’ points out Schricker.
Bricks from the initial framework have been recycled and reused exactly where feasible, while in places in which the partitions are entirely new, a various type of mortar was utilized to subtly highlight the big difference in between time durations throughout the building’s pores and skin. Within, the exposed brick character of the framework proceeds in all its glory, delivering a tactile, still neutral ample and multipurpose backdrop for artwork display. In the meantime, a flowing, dramatic, 12m-very long staircase results in being a important centrepiece in the key floor and upper gallery floors, created without any middle supports in a feat of poured-in-situ concrete engineering.
Schricker adds: ‘Similar to the roof of the Bazaar of Isfahan, the new floating concrete roofs participate in several roles: as deep skylights, they continue to keep the warmth out whilst filtering the gentle in for the galleries and they also dance with the neighbouring roofs of downtown Tehran. Finally, as a symbolic nod or “tip of the hat”, they greet the city’ as it welcomes again Argo.
Formerly at OMA/AMO in New York and Herzog & de Meuron in Basel, Schricker will work on a selection of scales, internationally, from his New York base and his two-pronged apply – ASA North is a much more ’traditional’ architecture follow, whilst its sister studio, ASA South, operates in the virtual realm. Ongoing operate in the Asia area by ASA North incorporates the to start with, new-develop Digital Museum for artwork collector Mohammed Afkhami in Dubai, and the masterplan of a 7,800 sq m cultural centre close to Saba Manouchehri’s textile collection in the metropolis of Kashan, Iran. §
