Architectonics: Design of the Nu Art Museum in Bandung

Abstract

The research is focused on the post-modern Nu Art Museum in Bandung of I. Nyoman Nuarta, who is known as a sculptor-creator. Nuarta has shifted his approach to sculpture from the mainstream paradigm of classical museum design to architectonics, museum design, and land art. According to the master plan, the Nu Art Museum and Sculpture Park is a space composed for Nuarta’s artistic community, which includes an outdoor sculpture park; gallery, studio and workshop; visitors’ spaces; and living facilities for the creation, production and display of his masterpieces such as the New Garuda Wisnu Kencana project. To understand the aims, objectives, and issues surrounding the NuArt Museum requires a multi-faceted method, which is achieved in various ways; first, by elaborating on the typology of famous museums in the world; second, by exploring architectural theory; and third, by in-depth communications with the artist himself to reveal his artistic passion, desire, and intervention. By referring to grounded theory research within a qualitative research method for the analysis of the Nu Art Museum in Bandung, the design process was revealed as architectonics, museum design, and as a land art project that adopted an architecture-sculpture approach. The architectonics are purely interpreted as the artists’ collective desire to show off their post-modern artistic spirit (zeitgeist) by performing anti-deterministic, self-sustaining, and/or multivalent actions towards a new architecture, thus provoking new interpretations of Nuarta’s creativity in architecture in an emotive and cognitive way.