Rock music, architecture and design collide in MVRDV's mixed-use masterplan for Ragnarock

by Kim Megson | 03 Feb 2016

The museum will be clad with golden spikes intended to reflect the colourful rockstar experience / MVRDV/Luxigon

The transformation of a former industrial site in Danish city Roskilde into a new home for rock and roll will be complete by April this year, CLAD has learned.

The Danish Rock Museum, the headquarters of the annual Roskilde Rock Festival and the Roskilde Festival Folk Music School will soon all be housed in one new complex, called Ragnarock.

The facilities will be located inside renovated factory buildings with new volumes constructed above.

Dutch studio MVRDV, in collaboration with Danish practice COBE, have designed the 45,000sq m (484,300sq ft) project and have included some typically innovative touches.

The festival offices are shaped as a stack of loudspeakers with a black rubber facade, and some of the speakers can be used for real during concerts taking place in a new public plaza below. The museum – the focus of the complex – is clad with golden spikes intended to reflect the colourful rockstar experience “like the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust”.

“The clash between the different building styles and architectural histories makes this site an interesting space with which to experiment and continue the juxtaposition of diverse styles and scales, both open and intimate,” said MVRDV in a statement.

The wider neighbourhood is currently used by artists, skaters and musicians and the brief called for the architects to retain this aura of creativity. As such, the masterplan includes accommodation for creatives and students and makes room for temporary pavilions to be added around the plaza and within the wide open spaces of the factory buildings.

“We want the areas not hosting Ragnarock’s public programme to be left as informal, undefined free space where temporary activities, events, exhibitions and spontaneous creativity can take place,” the design team said.

“Any creative city needs constant development to increase the density and liveliness of the area. It must accommodate all kinds of wants and needs – even the once unthinkable and unimaginable.”

Ragnarock is being built in collaboration with landscape architects LIW Planning and engineering firms Arup and Wessberg. The budget for the project has not been disclosed.

The name of the scheme alludes to Ragnarök, a war between the gods that plays a significant role in Norse mythology.