Thomas Heatherwick’s studio transforms a South African grain silo into a striking new museum

Africa’s first major institution dedicated to modern art, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), is set to open this month. Located in a former grain silo in Cape Town, the new museum will house what many expect to be the world’s leading collection of contemporary African art.

Built in 1921, the 187-foot silo was once the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. Consisting of 42 vertical concrete tubes, the structure was used to store and grade maize from all over the country.

The silo has since become an icon of South Africa’s legislative capital. A $38-million-dollar-development to turn the building into a museum was announced in 2013. British architect Thomas Heatherwick was commissioned to produce “an architectural intervention inspired by its own historic character,” according to a press statement released by Zeitz MOCAA.

“The project called for a solution that would be unique to Africa, and create the highest possible quality of exhibition space for the work displayed inside,” the statement continued.

Using this brief, Heatherwick Studio set about carving into the silo’s tubes. Directly inspired by the building’s former uses – while looking to both preserve and reinvent history – the firm created a large central space with smaller offshoots that will be used as galleries.

“We’re used to the idea that ‘outsides’ are the iconic or memorable bit,” Heatherwick told CNN. “But how could you make an inside be memorable and compelling?”

The Zeitz MOCAA is a new major institution dedicated to contemporary art in South Africa. "It was the tallest building in Sub-Saharan Africa for half a century but it had no space in it," Heatherwick told CNN.

"Our role as the designer was to turn this into a place that has 80 galleries," explained Heatherwick. The museum is located inside a former grain silo in Cape Town, South Africa.

"There have been artists and private galleries, but not a public institution to showcase to the world the amazing works of African artists within Africa and the rest of the world," said Heatherwick.

"It was sculpting and carving," Heatherwick explained of the building's unusual design. "Our idea was that this building had stored trillions of grains of corn that had moved vertically through each of these silo units. We managed to get hold of some of the original corn and we digitally scanned the shapes of those and then we picked one of those and enlarged that to be ten stories high. And so you use that one grain of corn, in a way (as) the cutting device -- to give the building a heart."

"The project called for a solution that would be unique to Africa and create the highest possible quality of exhibition space for the work displayed inside," said Heatherwick.

The museum features one large central space, and then smaller spaces that will be used as galleries.

Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA)

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The resulting geometries reveal a fascinating play of light and space.

As Heatherwick Studio’s group leader Mat Cash explained in a recent interview with CNN: “We figured out that the best kind of cutting medium to use would be the object that had been stored in these grain silos for so many years. So, we took a singular grain of corn … and we supersized it and used that to scallop out the heart (of the silo’s storage tubes).”

“It became in a way like mining and carving out,” Heatherwick explained. “It created a different kind of vision that is non-religious but we realized with the daylight coming from above, it could have a powerful emotional effect.

“And with all my studio’s projects, we are really interested in this humanistic dimension. There was so much soulfulness, character and idiosyncrasy in this existing structure, so keeping and retaining that felt much more exciting … rather than wiping it clean and attempting to make something new.”

In the video above, Thomas Heatherwick takes CNN Style on a tour of the Zeitz MOCAA.