peter rice

Alessandro Mendini, the architect of
the new Groningen Museum in the
Netherlands, asked the artist Fronk
Stello to design the upper gallery of
one wing of the museum. The
museum is located in the city centre
on o mound and is surrounded by
water.
edge. In the latter case, an inclination
of the edge wall is created all around
the building.
· The geometry of the leaf was
researched according to the plastic
form desired by Stella and then the
structure was defined.
Fronk Stello developed the
architecture of the museum in his
studio in New York and mode the
initial models from aluminium pieces.
The project consists of two
intersecting leaves that float above
the gallery floor. Each leaf hos the
some undulating geometry and one is
defined from the other by o rotation
and o translation. The pattern of the
leaf 'veins' governs the floor pion and
the position of the partitions. The
edges of the leaves overhang and o
continuous strip of gloss runs around
the gallery. The veins are laminated
wooden beams that intersect at their
support points. Between the beams, a
grid of wooden joists creates a
surface over which two layers of
teflon coated fabric are stretched. The
walls are found either at the vertical
projection of the edge beam or are
set perpendicular to the surface at the
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