White’s team in the final battle for the War Museum in England

Av Peter Nilsson
Publicerad Wednesday 21 January, 2009.

Besides White, four other renowned international firms have been chosen by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), who are holding the competition. The remaining firms are: Kinnear Landscape Architects from London, Patel Taylor Architects, also from London, Topotek 1 from Berlin and Field Operations from New York.

“It’s obviously inspiring to be measured against such renowned opposition,” says Helena Bjarnegård at White in Göteborg, who’s in charge of the Swedish team. “All the candidates are really sharp in terms of creative, conceptual landscape architecture and it’ll be exciting to see the end result.”

The Imperial War Museum North in Manchester is the northern branch of the museum of the same name in London. The actual museum building was created by US architect Daniel Liebeskind, who’s responsible for designing the Jewish museum in Berlin and who also won the competition to design Ground Zero in Manhattan.
The Imperial War Museum North deals with people and the stories of how their lives were affected by war and conflict in different ways. The building has been designed to resemble remnants of an earth finally shattered by war to give a really brutal impression to say the least.

The museum plays a central role in the rejuvenation of the Quays dockland area alongside the Manchester Ship Canal, which is also home to the BBC’s new Broadcasting House. As the area enters its next phase, the environment around the War Museum will be given a new design to link to the content of the museum.
Maggie Mullan, RIBA’s architectural advisor to the competition, says: “It was fantastic to get so much major international response for this project.”

A hectic time now awaits Helena Bjarnegård and her team at White. The five finalists need to submit their proposals by 15 January and then be interviewed by the jury in Manchester at the beginning of February. In the meantime all proposals will be on show to the public.