Boxen ArkDes: a white box and different perspectives of engagement

Architecture and Art Exhibitions

The Dehlin Brattgård Arkitekter Studio is designing a new center for art and architecture in Stockholm, within a cultural building from the 1950s. The Boxen, with its ramp that wraps around the structure, welcomes and envelops the visitor inside the exhibition. It is a structure that can be used in its entirety, both inside and outside, by exhibitors and the public. The white canvas of the white-box interior contrasts with an external surface of chain-link metal mesh, effectively doubling the exhibition space of the wall.

Experience and Accessibility

The gallery represents one of the architecture projects that most engages visitors, due to the presence of a ramp from which exhibitions can be seen from multiple points in space. In this way, people are positioned as an integral part of the Boxes. Located in a building that already hosted cultural events in the 1950s, Boxen has contributed a new element of utilitarian architecture to the constellation of museum spaces.

Structure and material

Built with a prefabricated modular structure and internally lined with birch plywood and white plasterboard, Boxen is covered by a corrugated steel roof. The primary structure, with columns at regular intervals, makes the main structure of the gallery independent. Cantilevered from the primary structure is the ramp.

From this suspended ramp, a hidden staircase allows visitors to re-enter the actual gallery.

Architectural Details

The roof, raised from the walls to connect the exhibition space to the surrounding room, allows natural light to enter the main interior space. The interior is a high, symmetrical, white room accessible from three doors. An additional layer of textile net forms a railing around the outer edge of the ramp. The layering of materials on the exterior of the structure creates a filigree expression and a visual depth that blurs the boundaries between the gallery's interior space, the external surface of the exhibition, and the surrounding museum room.