Landscaped Bands Seamlessly Incorporate Subterranean Natural History Museum into Forest Setting
Whether creating a baseball stadium, ballet theater, or museum, BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) consistently has innovative ideas. The Hungarian Natural History Museum exemplifies this creativity. BIG secured an international competition win to design the 23,000-square-meter institution due to its forward-thinking concept featuring three landscaped ribbons that form a new area dedicated to science.
Situated within the Great Forest of Hungary’s second-largest city, Debrecen, the upcoming museum will emerge from the forest floor. With its verdant roofs and charred timber exterior, the museum will seamlessly integrate into its surroundings while offering luminous exhibition spaces for its permanent collection.
The museum, designed with a partially submerged layout, will become an essential element of the landscape, which is particularly suitable for a natural history museum. With accessibility on all sides and filled with open plazas and meandering forest trails, it will create new community areas. This design will enable visitors to appreciate the relationship between science, architecture, and nature.
“We envisioned the Hungarian Natural History Museum as an integrated part of its environment, both shaped by and shaping the landscape around it,” shares BIG Partner Hanna Johansson. “Constructed from mass timber, the building showcases a facade made of locally sourced charred timber panels that rise from the ground, merging the boundaries between architecture and nature.”
Within, the expansive exhibition spaces created by the ribbons provide an ideal backdrop for showcasing impressive displays of dinosaur fossils and other natural elements. Alongside five permanent galleries and a temporary exhibition area, the museum will feature a library and restaurant that offer views of the forest canopy, while below, a learning center will host workshops, play areas, and research labs for students, families, and staff.
Though no official timeline for construction has been announced, it is expected to open by 2030, as it is part of a broader initiative to make Debrecen a center for education and culture by that year.
BIG has secured an international competition win to design the Hungarian Natural History Museum.
The museum, which is partially integrated into the earth, boasts a charred timber facade and landscaped roofs.
The ribbon-like roofs create luminous, airy exhibition spaces ideal for a natural history museum.
By springing from the forest floor, the museum becomes a vital part of the ecosystem.
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