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Moderna movement: like MoMA in New York , Stockholm's Moderna Museet has had to move into temporary premises, designed quickly with great ingenuity on a limited budget - p76

Architectural Review, The, Oct, 2002 by Penny McGuire

New temporary premises for the Museum of Modern Art (Moderna Museet) in Stockholm, designed in eminently civilized fashion by Frane Hederus Malmstrom, were made necessary by the closure for two years of Rafael Moneo's building on Skeppsholmen, housing the Modern Museum and The Swedish Museum of Architecture (AR November 1998). The building is undergoing treatment and improvement following discovery of spreading damp and mould, and consequent poor air quality. While the Museum of Architecture has moved its exhibitions to the Swedish Royal Academy of Fine Arts on Fredsgatan and its offices to Drottninggatan. the Modern Museum was allotted a warehouse on Klarabergsviadukten in the centre of Stockholm, between the central station and city hall. The building, constructed in 1987, was for a short time a postal sorting office, but the advance of technology rendered it redundant. Bought by the city, it is to be turned into a conference centre once the Modern Museum has departed in eighteen months' time.

The museum is a distinguished institution with one of the best collections in the world of modern art from the beginning of the 1900s to the present day, and of photography from the 1840s. The move has meant temporary dispersal of the collections but the spirit of Swedish democracy is alive and strong, as is the belief that the art belongs to the Swedish people, and the museum has taken the opportunity to send exhibitions round the country. The museum's star had been somewhat on the wane, but the recent appointment of Lars Nittves as director (he was previously the director of Tate Modern in London), is seen as heralding a new golden period.

For the moment the museum's staff, as well as the public, appreciate the spaciousness, light and air of their temporary home. Informing the design is the idea that this should be essentially a place where people can keep in touch with the activities of the museum through catalogues, magazines, internet and video, and attend exhibitions and events. It is a lively and welcoming place, with a bookshop and restaurant either side of the entrance foyer, and a comprehensive information centre, photographic library, children's workshop and gallery.

In achieving popular success, the architects working with the museum have performed something of a feat, for the budget was tight and the premises had to be ready within five or so months. Keeping to budget was effected by retaining as much as possible of the existing structure and fittings -- ceilings, for example have simply been repainted -- and by using relatively cheap materials such as rubber flooring and plastic sheeting.

The plan of the building is shaped like the tail of an aircraft, tapering from (roughly) north to south. Most of it is devoted to offices, conservation workshops and a packing room. Only a relatively small area, skewed round from the entrance from the street on the north, to the main south-west face of the building, where it overlooks the city hall, is devoted to the public domain. A large wall, devised in collaboration with the museum's graphic design agency, Storakers, runs around the upper edge of this public realm and guides visitors from the entrance into the interior.

The space, fitted with lighting tracks, is infinitely flexible. Sliding partitions can shut off part of it so that only the restaurant, or the restaurant and information centre are open, while screens in the information centre can be moved to define spaces for special activities. Between information and the exhibition gallery is a glowing box shedding luminance into the interior. It is composed of three walls of structured plastic sheeting illuminated from behind, and a multi-media wall for back projection.