Lina Ghotmeh: ‘Museums should go beyond conservation to foster exchange, reflection and critical thinking’ – The Art Newspaper

In February 2025, Lina Ghotmeh, the Beirut-born, Paris-based architect, gained the competitors to supervise the remodelling of the Western Vary of the British Museum, a sequence of galleries that makes up one-third of the historic London establishment. In an announcement, Ghotmeh mentioned the duty for her observe and the mission staff—which incorporates the conservation specialists Purcell and the engineers Arup—was to rework the vary into “a rare house, a spot of connections for the world and of the world”.

The museum’s director, Nicholas Cullinan, mentioned in an announcement that Ghotmeh’s proposals “demonstrated an distinctive and materially delicate architectural imaginative and prescient”. Her proposal’s “archaeological” strategy, he mentioned, ”clearly understood the ambition for this mission to be as a lot an mental transformation as an architectural one”.

Ghotmeh grew up within the Lebanese capital within the Nineteen Eighties within the closing decade of the nation’s civil struggle, and was first drawn to medication and to archaeology—in a metropolis of historic habitation the place layers of classical civilisation (Phoenician, Greek, Roman) sit cheek by jowl with war-scarred buildings and their modern replacements. She studied structure on the American College of Beirut after which in Paris on the École Spéciale d’Structure (ESA), whereas growing a strategy that she calls “archaeology of the longer term”. She was an affiliate professor at ESA from 2008 to 2015, a interval when she and her first observe, DGT Architects (based with Dan Dorell and Tsuyoshi Tane), was executing a a lot praised fee to construct a Nationwide Museum (2006-16) at Tartu, in Estonia, after which she established her eponymous observe, Lina Ghotmeh—Structure.

Ghotmeh is famous for her human-centred strategy to constructing, for seeing structure’s shut connection to nature and panorama, and for going deep to find the proper, sustainable supplies for every mission. She relishes working carefully with expert artisans and the challenges of website administration. Her latest buildings embrace the Stone Backyard tower (2020), in Beirut, with its hand-combed and chiselled rendered end, and À Desk, the weightless-seeming 2023 Serpentine pavilion in central London, designed to be a spot of assembly and dialog, open to the sights and parts of the encompassing Kensington Gardens. Her observe’s newest commissions embrace a recent artwork museum in AlUla, Saudi Arabia, in collaboration with the Pompidou Centre; a brand new everlasting Venice Biennale pavilion for Qatar; and the Bahrain Pavilion for Expo 2025 Osaka, which, just like the Serpentine pavilion, has an intricately joined timber building which requires virtually no foundations.

In an Instagram put up throughout President Emmanuel Macron of France’s go to to the British Museum in July, throughout which he introduced the 2026 mortgage of the Bayeux Tapestry to the museum, Ghotmeh mentioned she was proud to be working with Cullinan on “reimagining the museum as a spot of humanity, heritage and world dialogue”.

The artwork Newspaper: What first excited you about getting into the competitors for the redevelopment of the Western Vary of the British Museum?

Lina Ghotmeh:Essentially the most thrilling factor about this competitors was that we have been participating instantly with the historical past of the world by way of the British Museum, and reflecting on the position the museum performs in connecting folks. From the beginning, one of many central questions within the transient was: what’s the museum of the twenty first century? That may be a query that has all the time me in my observe. We’ve been fascinated by what position museums play in our societies, how they need to evolve sooner or later, and the way they’ll turn out to be locations of dialogue and tradition. Museums ought to transcend conservation and the safekeeping of objects; they need to be locations that foster trade, reflection and significant pondering.

How has the mission developed within the eight months because you gained the fee?

I don’t assume the main target of consideration has shifted; fairly, it has deepened. We’re trying extra carefully at topics particular to the British Museum itself and to its collections—questions of the way to rework the constructing whereas respecting its heritage. Tips on how to reveal historical past, introduce respiration areas and produce gentle into the museum. Additionally it is concerning the show of objects, and the way to relate them to the structure as a way to create a way of circulate—whereas permitting a level of freedom from the constructing. On the identical time, we see structure as a vessel that grants dignity to every object and affords a framework by way of which their tales will be understood.

That is one thing that has advanced for the reason that competitors stage and continues to develop immediately. The mission grows with every encounter—with stakeholders, with the consumer, and with the numerous totally different tales and views concerned. We attempt to embrace that complexity and make it a part of the richness of the mission.

The British Museum is a heritage constructing that has undergone many transformations, and the previous months have been an intense strategy of discovery. We’ve been finding out its bodily qualities, reconstructing its historical past and making an attempt to know its essence—what should stay and what will be reworked. The goal is to carry lightness and respiration house into the galleries, creating extra extraordinary experiences for guests.

It has additionally been a strategy of dialogue—assembly curators, exploring the collections and storerooms, and fascinating with broader questions alongside Nicholas Cullinan. This has helped us set up the foundations of a shared imaginative and prescient and start drafting the primary proposals for the way the Western Vary will be reworked and extra totally related with the remainder of the museum.

Your work is grounded in your data of archaeology. How has that knowledgeable your strategy to the British Museum mission, the place the constructing isn’t but 200 years previous however the place you’re working with one of many world’s nice archaeological collections?

The method of designing by way of what I name an “archaeology of the longer term” is about approaching design as a research-driven course of. Each new mission begins with making an attempt to know its atmosphere within the deepest sense—bodily, materials, social, historic.

Structure is inherently complicated, and we embrace that complexity as a part of our course of. That is significantly related on the British Museum, the place the gathering of greater than eight million objects tells tales about folks and civilisations—about variations, commonalities and contradictions. It typically raises troublesome questions. My fascination with archaeology lies on this: the power to deal with design as a strategy of inquiry, to work with complexity and rework it into one thing intelligible. This mind-set helps us cope with the numerous layers embedded within the museum and to carry them collectively in a significant kind.

At Harvard Graduate College of Design in November 2023 you spoke concerning the horizontality of a lot of your work, and the way a horizontal, ground-hugging constructing can anchor itself to the earth. With the British Museum, how have you ever thought-about “anchoring” each the establishment and its assortment when remodelling and renovating its present monumental house?

After I speak about horizontality, it pertains to layering. For me, horizontality is concerning the layering of floor. Once we design a constructing, it isn’t simply an object that sits on the bottom, however one thing that engages with the layers beneath it. I typically marvel how our cities, lined in asphalt, suffocate the earth—how can we let the bottom breathe once more? Structure will be seen as a porous layer, fairly than a closed floor.

This mind-set additionally applies to the British Museum—seeing the establishment as porous, open to its context and its neighbourhood. How can it turn out to be extra inviting to the encompassing communities, which signify many elements of the world? How can or not it’s extra related to nature, to gentle, to air? It’s about making the museum not simply an enclosed field, however a spot crammed with life, a human place. On the identical time, we’re conscious of the symbolic position of the museum on a worldwide scale—one of many first establishments of its type. What does that imply immediately? How can it open itself to new types of dialogue and, by way of its structure, additionally reply to modern challenges such because the local weather disaster? The purpose is to supply areas which can be extraordinary and awe-inspiring, but additionally tactile and human, that encourage dialogue and closeness between folks.

You’re famous for the emphasis on sustainability in your observe, not too long ago on the Hermès workshops at Louviers, in Normandy, the place you had greater than 500,000 bricks made out of native earth and masons retrained to construct with brick on a big scale. In your British Museum submission you proposed utilizing spoil from the reducing of Portland stone, in addition to rubble from the constructing course of, to line partitions. What extra are you able to inform us about your strategy to sustainability?

For me, designing sustainably all the time begins with listening to the place itself, with understanding it earlier than making any intervention. Within the British Museum, this implies finding out the present galleries, their qualities and their historical past. For instance, we found that when Robert Smirke designed the Egyptian and different galleries [in the mid-19th century], they have been conceived relying completely on pure gentle. Every gallery had a really specific temper. That high quality is one thing we need to retain and elevate, fairly than cowl up or erase.

Sustainability additionally means intervening with care—making exact, acupunctural gestures fairly than superfluous interventions. It’s about high quality: creating areas that may final, that may adapt to the wants of the longer term, and that won’t really feel out of date in 100 years. Additionally it is about vitality—pondering of the local weather situations of the galleries, lowering areas that require heavy cooling or heating, and creating gradations of local weather based on the sensitivity of the objects.

And, after all, it’s about supplies economic system. Are we transporting supplies from the world over, or are we reusing what’s already there? Can we recycle what’s demolished and switch it into one thing precious once more? All of this pushes us to assume in a round, ecosystemic manner, fairly than a linear and wasteful one.

Throughout President Macron’s go to to the museum you wrote that you’re proud to be working with Cullinan to reimagine the museum “as a spot of humanity, heritage and world dialogue”. May you say extra on these three ideas?

Right this moment, greater than ever, we should take into consideration our widespread humanity and our shared future on this earth. Each motion in a single place has an impression elsewhere, and we now have a duty to mirror that within the museum. Humanity right here means creating a spot the place everybody feels welcomed, the place the objects of all civilisations are revered, and the place we additionally acknowledge the dwelling world. People are a part of nature, and nature ought to be a part of our pondering in designing the museum.

Heritage is about historical past. We be taught from historical past, from our previous, and you will need to make that heritage seen. It helps us think about the way to reside higher collectively sooner or later. On this mission, it means understanding the historical past of the constructing itself and in addition of the establishment—why the British Museum was established, what legacy it carries, and the way we will converse with that legacy immediately.

International dialogue is about creating locations of dialog. Structure has the capability to form areas the place folks really feel comfortable, the place they really feel revered, cared for, and due to this fact extra able to enter into dialogue. That’s what we would like the museum to be: a spot that embraces humanity and heritage and, by way of its structure, makes house for dialog about variations and shared futures.

You could have referred previously to going to the micro—the size of a human hand or a leaf—when devising design or constructing strategies. You have been additionally quoted on the time of your appointment to the British Museum fee in your deal with “getting near the micro-scale”, of “tactility”, of “getting all of the senses engaged”. How has this strategy fed into the event of the mission?

At any time when I take into consideration an area, I mission myself into it as a human being experiencing it. I attempt to step away from seeing structure as a distant object or summary kind, and as an alternative think about strolling, touching and fascinating with the areas.

Scale, proportion and tactility are important. After all, through the design course of we use drawings, renderings and three-dimensional simulations, however the true query is all the time: How will this really feel to an individual within the house? That’s what we continually take a look at in any mission. We’re additionally fascinated by a gradation of experiences—transferring from very intimate areas to mid-scale galleries after which to bigger halls for collective encounters. This vary of scales creates richness within the museum and ensures that the expertise stays human and diverse.

Which of your unrealised initiatives do you most take care of?

There are various unrealised initiatives, as is usually the case with structure—competitions that don’t go forward, initiatives that cease halfway. I take care of all of them as a result of a number of thought and care goes into each.

One that continues to be very significant to me is the Saradar Basis mission in Beirut. It was an archive and museum within the mountains, devoted to the historical past of Lebanon as seen by way of the eyes of artists. We conceived it as a home, impressed by the standard Lebanese typology with a central courtyard. Right here, the courtyard would turn out to be a big library the place works have been displayed like a cupboard of curiosity, and the encompassing rooms would every reveal the gathering in interactive methods—as bedrooms, eating rooms or different typologies. The concept was to make the customer not only a passive viewer however an energetic participant within the curation of the museum. It was a really lovely course of, even when the mission isn’t realised but.

What’s structure for?

It’s a query I ask myself each day. For me, structure is for folks, for nature, for pleasure. It’s for imagining a greater world—one that’s extra peaceable, extra related. Structure is the panorama we inhabit collectively, and it has the potential to make the world a greater one.

There may be a lot artwork in your observe—drawing, watercolour and extra. What’s artwork for?

Artwork is a manner of understanding the world—and ourselves. We’re not solely rational beings; we join by way of artwork to what lies past cause. We connect with our humanity. It permits us to query, to really feel, to think about. It’s an important a part of being human.