Forum Groningen

NL Architects

Project description

Forum Groningen is a new multifunctional building in the center of Groningen, a cultural ‘department store’ filled with books and images, that offers exhibition spaces, movie halls, assembly rooms, restaurants. The Forum has become a platform for interaction and debate, a ‘living room’ for the city. Forum Groningen is NOT a library, NOT a museum, NOT a cinema, but a new type of public space where the traditional borders between these institutes is dissolving. Information is be presented thematically in a way that transcends the different media. Forum Groningen features an exceptional central space, an innovative atrium that with its horizontal ‘tentacles’ forms the pumping heart of the venue. The void works as a spatial interface that binds all functions, and as such catalyzes the exchange of knowledge and ideas. A series of stacked ‘squares’ emerges that can be experienced as the continuation of the network of open spaces in the city of Groningen. The specific layout offers changing perspectives on the surrounding city and culminates in the roof terrace, a viewing platform and outdoor theater. Forum Groningen has been engineered “to accommodate finding not searching”.