Attila KIM Architects is the team led by the architect Attila Kim, an architect with extensive experience in the design of exhibitions and cultural events, restoration and architectural projects, nominated three times for the European Union Contemporary Architecture Award, the Mies van der Rohe Award, winner of several national awards at the Bucharest Architecture Biennale, Bucharest Architecture Annual, Transylvania Architecture Biennale, Arhitext Awards, and awarded in 2016 with the Arts and Society Leadership Award by the Aspen Institute for his contribution to Romanian culture.
Attila Kim is a founding member of the architecture workshops Studio Kim Bucșa Diaconu (SKBD) and Lundi et Demi. Since 2012 he has been working independently, leading a young and dynamic team, under the name of Attila KIM Architects. The team members are Attila Kim, Alexandru Szűz Pop, Adina Marin, Andreea Precup and Cristina Iordache.
Important projects include public buildings, residential buildings, showrooms, exhibitions and fairs, shops and restorations of historical monuments.
Starting from 2016, Attila Kim is the Commissioner of Romania at the Venice Biennale.
Project description in English
The exhibition halls of the Timișoara National Art Museum, which hosted the Victor Brauner exhibition, have a very strong architectural character, on the one hand because of the classical Baroque architectural composition, and on the other hand because of the strong chromatic contrast between the white walls and the dark wood carpentry of doors, windows, shutters and plinths.
The exhibition's architectural concept is primarily based on diminishing this strong contrast and defining a more neutral space for displaying the artworks.
The architectural character of the rooms, the size of the spaces, the way in which the connections between them are made, the strong presence of all the doors, windows, including the niches, which preserve the memory of the former circulations, and last but not least, the presence of decorative elements, determine a general architectural approach of simplification of the museum space.
Another very important aspect, that influenced the exhibition architecture, is the lack of exhibition walls. The exhibition space set up in this baroque building, typical of its construction period, consists of a series of spaces, in which the walls of each room are fragmented by doors, windows and niches.
Inspired by the architecture of the period in which Victor Brauner's works were made, the design concept proposed the use of modernist elements, typical of the interwar period. In order to reduce the contrasting atmosphere of the rooms, a dark gray colour was used for the walls and ceilings, a typical shade for the modernist period, thus bringing the color of the walls and ceilings closer to the dark shade of the wooden elements.
In order to hide the existing niches and to create more exhibition surface, some new walls were introduced throughout the space. These new walls were made out of wood, with a dark finishing close to the shade of the dark brown carpentry, referencing the wooden panelings of the interwar houses. Exhibiting on wooden surfaces was a widespread practice in the last century, especially common in the case of modernist interiors.
