The exhibition TABULA – Arvo Pärt Centre by Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano, the architects of the Arvo Pärt Centre, will be opened on 8 December in Berlin’s prestigious Aedes Architecture Forum, where it will introduce the architecture and conceptual points of departure for the new Arvo Pärt Centre building. The exhibition will be on view until 16 January 2018.
The exhibition presents a visual-acoustic installation where the architectural elements of the building step into a dialogue with Arvo Pärt’s music – more precisely, with his work Tabula rasa, which can also be heard at the exhibition and has been one of the starting points for the new building.
According to the architects, the building reflects the silence, beauty and geometry of Pärt’s music through architectural means. The building also considers the surrounding landscape, the rhythm and verticality of the pine trees, creating a balance between the intimacy of Pärt’s compositions and the powerful beauty of the Estonian landscape. Besides the archive and employees’ work spaces, the building with pentagonal courtyards and sinuous curved walls will also accommodate a library, a 140-seat chamber hall, an exhibition area, a video room and classrooms. It will cover 2,348 square metres.
The catalogue accompanying the exhibition will include the architectural sketches of the building in parallel with excerpts from Arvo Pärt’s original score for Tabula rasa. The catalogue is compiled by the architectural office Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos in collaboration with the Arvo Pärt Centre and will be published by the Aedes Architecture Forum.
Architects Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano (Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos) were declared the winners of the international architectural design competition for the Arvo Pärt Centre in 2014 with their entry Tabula. The construction project was prepared jointly with the Estonian architecture bureau Luhse & Tuhal and construction work was commenced by the main contractor, Ehitustrust AS in March 2017.
The Arvo Pärt Centre will open its doors to the public in October 2018. That event will also be part of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia.
The Madrid and Berlin based architecture bureau Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos was founded in 1985 by the architects Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano. They have received numerous awards for their work, including the National Prize for Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage in 2007, the Nike Award by the Association of German Architects (BDA) in 2010, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2010, the Piranesi Prix de Rome in 2011, the European Museum of the Year Award in 2012, the Hannes Meyer Prize in 2012 and the Alvar Aalto Medal in 2015 among others.
Read more about the exhibition.