Sordo Madaleno wins competition to design Hungarian Museum of Natural History collection center

Sordo Madaleno, építész stúdió, and Buro Happold have received a global competitors to design a brand new assortment heart for the Hungarian Museum of Pure Historical past (HMNH) in Debrecen, Hungary. Debrecen is roughly 120 miles east of Budapest and is Hungary’s second largest metropolis.

The forthcoming assortment heart will measure 463,000 sq. toes and host over 11 million objects for storage and examine. It is going to be situated within the College of Debrecen Science Park and increase the Hungarian Museum of Pure Historical past flagship constructing now underway by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).

The choice by Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to relocate the HMNH from Budapest, the place it’s been for 200 years, to Debrecen was marred by controversy when the mission was introduced in 2020. BIG received a global competitors to design the HMNH in 2025; the flagship constructing is now within the design part.

For the brand new assortment heart in Debrecen that may increase the HMNH flagship, Sordo Madaleno ideated an “elongated rectilinear constructing” meant to be learn as “a strong, elemental and timeless design,” the workplace stated in an announcement.

The competitors jury credited Sordo Madaleno, a third-generation Mexican workplace primarily based in Mexico Metropolis and London, with delivering a design that prioritizes sustainable practices and safety.

Guests will enter the middle by means of a multi-story atrium; inside courtyards will regulate daylighting. Cumulatively the constructing can have 92,000 sq. toes of archival house and 20,000 sq. toes of examine house. It can rise three tales above grade and have a basement degree. The highest ground will likely be lit by an atrium.

From afar, the gathering heart will likely be outlined by its striated brick facade with intricate patterning. Its materiality evokes Hungarian clay vessels, Sordo Madaleno acknowledged. This symbolizes the middle’s supposed perform “to guard and incubate” valuable artifacts.

Renderings present fossils and different artifacts lining rectilinear shelving. Fernando Sordo Madaleno stated in an announcement: “The Centre’s employees are stewards of the objects, and the structure turns into an extension of that stewardship.”

“Inside this layered ecology of care, the article is framed not as an remoted artifact however as an embodiment of life-worlds and landscapes that nourish reciprocal relationships,” Sordo Madaleno added. “Our constructing displays this mutuality, offering an area of unity between conservator, stakeholder, structure, and atmosphere.”