The construction of the Museum of Macedonia complex is the result of the idea to merge three museum institutions – the Historical Museum (founded in 1952), the Ethnological Museum (founded in 1949), and the Archaeological Museum (founded in 1949), into a single national institution that would present the culture of the Macedonian people.[1] This idea was integrated into the Programme for the Construction of Cultural Facilities for the period 1963-1970, aiming to improve the conditions of the museum institutions following the 1963 earthquake.[2] The programme envisaged the construction of a new building for the Museum of Macedonia, which would incorporate the Historical, Ethnological, and Archaeological museums, as well as the Republican Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments. The new museum complex was projected to span an area of approximately 10,000 m2.
The construction of the Museum of Macedonia began with a symbolic laying of the foundation stone on November 12, 1971, and the building was officially commissioned on November 13, 1976. The facility opened with several temporary thematic exhibitions, and following the grand opening, an additional four years of work were planned to prepare the exhibition spaces for permanent displays.
Response to the Urban Context: The Museum of Macedonia is situated within the complex context of the Old Bazaar in Skopje, in the immediate vicinity of Kuršumli An and the Gjurčiler (Shengyl) Hamam, which was partially destroyed in the earthquake.[3] The museum's location is bounded to the west by Prokhor Pchinski Street, to the south and southwest by Opincharska and Svekiarska streets, while to the east and north, it opens onto a wide plateau towards Kuršumli An. The building is freestanding, positioned asymmetrically relative to the plot, and set back toward the ridge of the hill (the northern slope of the Kale Fortress). This area is completely pedestrianized, and the only vehicular access is to the parking lot via Prokhor Pchinski Street. The entrances to the building face the central plateau.
Spatial-Volumetric Structure Regarding the interpolation of the spatial-volumetric structure, the construction of the museum complex posed a complex architectural and urban design challenge – inserting a volume that contains an extensive programme into a highly specific historical setting composed, on one hand, of the fine-grained structure of the Bazaar's living organism, and on the other, of monumental historical buildings.
The response to this requirement is a dynamic spatial configuration, which, in an attempt to contextualize itself with the surrounding masses, is divided into multiple repeating volumes. Thanks to this fragmentation and the low, predominantly horizontal disposition of the building, visitors do not get the impression of its true scale. Several functional sections of varying sizes can be identified on the ground floor; on the upper floor, the mass is articulated into equal spatial units – white, diagonally and step-arranged prisms measuring 15x15 m. The large, cantilevered triangular overhangs above the recessed and indented ground-floor spaces give a special intensity to the space. The roofscape plays an additional role in the rhythm of the masses, blending into the picturesque tapestry of roofs and domes in the bazaar. In the northernmost part of the complex, the building of the Republican Institute for Protection is housed in a simple rectangular volume.
Programmatic Distribution The primary objective of the museum is the collection, organization, and preservation of historical, ethnological, and archaeological materials, along with their scientific research, presentation, and education. The museum's complex programme spans a gross developed area of 14,500 m2, of which nearly half (over 6,500 m2) constitutes the exhibition space of the three museums. The original concept of the exhibition spaces was to form a single, continuous interior space with clear and logical communication. The idea behind this organization is for visitors to become acquainted with Macedonian history from prehistory nearly to the present day, through various materials organized into thematic collections: stone plastics, numismatics, weapons, documents, traditional costumes, carpets, artistic creations, etc. In addition to the exhibition space, the facility includes a projection hall, a photo laboratory, specialized laboratories, preservation and conservation workshops, a library, etc. The administrative section (located in the entrance wing of the museum) is shared by all three museums. The museum depots, garages, and laboratories are located in the basement areas, spanning an area of about 5,000 m2.
On the eastern and northern sides, the building forms a wide, multi-levelled, and landscaped plateau, through which it connects to the level of Kuršumli An. Landscaped in this manner, the ground floor units unify the cultural institutions and open up the possibility of functioning as an open-air archaeological park and a space occasionally used for various cultural events.
Structure, Materiality, Articulation Structurally, the building is designed with a clear reinforced concrete skeleton system, supplemented at specific positions with logically placed reinforced concrete shear walls. Strict geometric shapes dominate the entire composition. The treatment and articulation of the masses, from a material standpoint, differ between the lower and upper levels. In the lower zone, the solid parts of the building are mainly executed in fair-faced (exposed) concrete with vertical grooves and stylized ornamentation emerging from the surface. Facing brick appears as a finish in certain positions; the recessed and cut-in parts of the prisms are fully glazed. The upper zone is dominated by the rhythm of white, diagonally and step-arranged prisms clad in white rusticated stone (buňa), which terminate in gable roofs (diagonal to the square fields). The rustic surface of the facade wall is not continuous but divided into eight vertical fields with a narrow gap between them. At the corners of the prisms, where the two facade surfaces meet, narrow strips of glass are left. These allow light into the interior space, but more importantly, they frame vistas of the context and bring them into the museum space – streets, cobblestones, roofs, and domes.
Project Authors: Mimoza Tomić, Kiril Muratovski
The text is an excerpt from the doctoral dissertation of Arch. Ana Ivanovska Deskova, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Architecture in Skopje, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University.
Ivanovska Deskova, Ana. Architecture of the Period of Post-Earthquake Reconstruction of Skopje. Doctoral dissertation (unpublished), Ss. Cyril and Methodius University – Faculty of Architecture, Skopje, 2015.
[1] The Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Macedonian Medieval Art were excluded from this idea from the very beginning, as separate spaces were planned for them.
[2] The buildings of the museums and the Republican Institute were destroyed in the earthquake, and since then they have operated in temporary structures, lacking exhibition halls and proper working conditions.
[3] The broader cultural context of the building comprises: the historical fabric of the Bazaar, the Church of St. Spas, the Mustafa Pasha Mosque, the medieval Kale Fortress, as well as the newly built buildings of the Theatre of Nationalities (at Bit-Pazar) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (on Kale).