ART AND MUSIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE

2nd Place, Renovation — 14th Memar Award

The historic Sa'd al-Saltaneh complex in Qazvin is a brick building from the Qajar era. Our project is located in one of the complex's caravanserais called Negar al-Saltaneh, which had been previously restored by the same consultant and was allocated by the Qazvin Cultural Heritage Organization for public gatherings and exhibitions. With a change of function, it was decided to transform this space into the Art and Music Research Institute of Iran.

The project has approximately 270 square meters of floor area and comprises four bays of the central courtyard of Negar al-Saltaneh caravanserai. After initial assessments, we decided to define the project's spatial character with minimal intervention in the traditional building, adding supplementary elements with a postmodern approach. Consequently, binary contrasts such as traditional/postmodern, order/disorder, new/old, and rough/polished shaped the project concept.

The supplementary elements took their form from the contour lines of the traditional building walls, and through cutting, folding, and bending, arrived at the desired form and settled into place. The research institute is a calm, gentle space for investigating and advancing music and art. To this end, the supplementary elements were rendered in white. The forms were designed as if the contour lines of volumes were freely and suspended in space, dancing, and settling at a fixed point.

Inside the classroom space, a kiln from the building's restoration was revived, upon which we placed glass and, with a combination of horizontal louvers and lighting, attempted to transform it into a floor-level tableau. Since this kiln was originally a pottery firing site, we covered its floor with broken pottery shards to preserve a memory of the distant past.

In the project's lighting design, we drew on the idea of musical staff lines and notes: the cables represent the staff lines and each light represents a musical note. In the assembly hall, the lights are positioned according to Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.