Do it yourself museum

Ivan Kucina and Nenad Katic discover with surprise how their client Vladimir Macura has “balkanized” their project in Novi Banovci near Beograd

Photos. Ana Kostic
Renders: Ivan Kucina, Nenad Katic

Macura Museum is the first designated museum built in Serbia since 1964. It displays the Macura private art collection – one of the largest in South-East Europe. It focuses on early 20th century movements such as dada, zenithism, surrealism, constructivism and Viennese actionism. It includes paintings, sculptures and design objects, and is complemented by original documentation – notes, sketches, photographs, letters, magazines.
The opening of Macura Museum two years ago was the first permanent location for a private collection in Serbia. The objects are presented in a very casual manner: works of high art mingle with signature furniture, original documentation is placed among every day banalities. Mr. Macura, who resides in Vienna, actually uses part of the building as his residence during his visits to Serbia, and often personally admits the visits and excursions.
At the time of first getting in touch with us, art collector Vladimir Macura had been looking for ways to set up a permanent exhibition of his collection in Belgrade. He asked us to design a budget-sensitive gallery of about 180 square meters on a field 10 km out of Belgrade. Our initial concept included the use of cheap materials and structure in a “do it yourself” manner, which, as later turned out, had been understood quite literally. We attempted to create as much exhibition walls as possible within a tiny building footprint.
The initial floor plan sketch that we drew on the soil of Mr. Macura’s estate, reminded him of a J. Knipfer meander painting from his collection. He felt inspired to imagine a much more ambitious project and so the design brief grew from a gallery into a museum five times bigger than the initial gallery (800 sqm), which meant adding more segments to the meander form, and one more floor. The program expanded too, adding a cafeteria to the exhibition space as well as an apartment for Mr. Macura.
At this point, the preliminary design in the form of a floor plan and 3D renders were handed over to Mr. Macura for consideration and feedback. It was not until about a year later that we were contacted again by Mr. Macura to come on site to see the building as it was nearing completion!

More about the project on p.168 - 174 in the new issue of Abitare Bulgaria