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Thomas Phifer's Richard Serra sculpture pavilion at the Glenstone Museum debuts in new film

2023-04-05T11:35:00-04:00

Thomas Phifer's custom-designed building for Richard Serra's monumental 2017 Four Rounds: Equal Weight, Unequal Measure sculpture at Maryland's Glenstone Museum is the subject of a new documentary short from Rava Films.

Premiering at last month's Montreal International Festival of Films on Art, You Are The Subject: Richard Serra at Glenstone charts the journey of the 656,000-pound sculpture from New Jersey to its new home at the 230-acre museum, where it was installed in July 2021.

According to the Glenstone, the film features previously unpublished reflections from the artist and the museum's Director and Co-Founder, Emily Rales, along with other key collaborators.

Still from "You Are The Subject: Richard Serra at Glenstone”. Image courtesy Glenstone Museum

The sculpture comprises four 82-ton forged steel segments which are now housed in a dedicated 4,000-square-foot pavilion that the architect designed in collaboration with Serra. This is now Serra's third site-specific piece at t...

Mabel O. Wilson, Deborah Berke, Thomas Phifer, and Michael Van Valkenburgh among members of the 2022 American Academy of Arts and Letters

2022-03-10T13:19:00-05:00

Writer and academic Mabel O. Wilson, architect Thomas Phifer, landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, and Yale SoA Dean Deborah Berke are among the newly-elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters according to an announcement from the institution yesterday.

The quartet joined the Academy with fourteen other honorees in music, art, and literature on a list of names that included painter Charles Gaines and The Things They Carried author Tim O’Brien.

Deborah Berke of Deborah Berke Partners

2022 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education recipient, Deborah Berke, FAIA. Photo: Winnie Au, courtesy Deborah Berke Partners

Berke has served as Dean of the Yale School of Architecture since 2016 in addition to operating her own New York-based practice, which she founded in 1982.

Thomas Phifer of Thomas Phifer and Partners

Image courtesy Thomas Pfifer and Partners

Phifer is the architect behind the recent expansion of Maryland’s Glenstone Museum and...

Rendering unveiled for a new Richard Serra sculpture building at the Glenstone Museum in Maryland

2021-07-13T17:14:00-04:00

A Richard Serra sculpture is coming to the Glenstone Museum, and today it has a new home.

The 15-year-old private collection has announced plans for a new dedicated 4,000-square-foot space that will house a forthcoming installation by the artist on its 230-acre location in suburban Maryland next year.

Thomas Phifer and Partners worked with Serra on plans for the new building that updates the museum’s original intent to have its collection displayed in an elevated way via separate individual viewing spaces that serve as guideposts on a journey undertaken by visitors navigating a central trail. The paneled envelope of the structure looms out of the wilderness upon approach, precast concrete and landscape combine to give the impression of a rock formation or bunker to onlookers who enter the structure through a single centered doorway.

Courtesy of the Glenstone Museum

“Creating another building for Glenstone’s extraordinary landscape while working with Richard Serra, without question ...

Mies van der Rohe design for Indiana University is being built, 70 years later

2021-06-18T12:21:00-04:00

Indiana University (IU) has shared an update of their Mies Building at the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. The scheme, currently under construction, realizes a recently rediscovered 1952 design by Mies van der Rohe for the IU Bloomington campus. The scheme has been adapted for contemporary use by architects Thomas Phifer and Partners and is expected to open in the Fall of 2021.

When completed, the Mies Building will be a 60-foot-wide, 140-foot-long rectangular structure of thin, white-painted steel and expansive glass with 10-square-foot panes. Floor-to-ceiling windows will wrap around the entire second story, which will feature a central exterior square atrium to enhance the building’s aura of transparency. Much of the lower level is external, with the main second story elevated above the ground.

Exterior view of the northwest corner of the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, a Mies van der Rohe Design, on the campus of Indiana University Bloomington. ...

Photos of the completed $200m Glenstone expansion

2018-09-24T15:25:00-04:00

The $200 million expansion adds 11 rooms constructed of stacked concrete blocks that are connected by a glass-walled passage and surround an 18,000-square-foot water court. [...] The Glenstone addition also has a strong outdoor component, with 130 acres of meadows, woodlands and streams, designed by Adam Greenspan and Peter Walker of PWP Landscape Architecture. Among the sculptures integrated into the landscape are those by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Ellsworth Kelly and Richard Serra.

“We considered the landscape as the inspiration,” said Thomas Phifer, architect of the five-year Glenstone expansion project. “The visitor’s arrival is choreographed through the trees and open fields, heightening your experience with the land and revealing the subtle qualities of the site. From your first moments at Glenstone, you experience a place with few distractions, the bustle of ordinary daily activities drops away, and your mind and soul prepare for an intimate encounter with art.”

Aerial of the Pavilions. Photo: PWP Landscape Architecture. Courtesy: Glenstone Museum.

Aerial of Pavilions. Photo: Iwan Baan. Courtesy: Glenstone Museum.

Water Court at the Pavilions. Photo: Iwan Baan. Courtesy: Glenstone Museum.

The Passage in the Pavilions. Photo: Iwan Baan. Courtesy: Glenstone Museum.

The Passage in the Pavilions. Martin Puryear, Big Phrygian, 2010-2014, painted red cedar, 58 x 40 x 76 inches (147 x 101 x 193 cm), © Martin Puryear, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery. Photo: Ron Amstutz...

Thomas Phifer-designed Glenstone expansion to open in October with impressive lineup

2018-07-20T19:57:00-04:00

The Pavilions, designed by Thomas Phifer of Thomas Phifer and Partners, is a 204,000-square-foot building providing 50,000 square feet of indoor exhibition space. That is more than five times the space available in Glenstone’s original building, designed by Charles Gwathmey (and currently installed with an impressive Louise Bourgeois exhibition, drawn from the collection).

The new 'The Pavilions' space by Thomas Phifer and Partners (with landscapes designed by Peter Walker and Partners) is scheduled to open on October 4 and will showcase pieces by big name artists like Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp, Richard Serra, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Photo: Iwan Baan/Glenstone Museum.

"Incorporated seamlessly into Glenstone’s 230-acre landscape, the Pavilions comprises 11 distinct rooms installed with artworks drawn exclusively from the museum’s collection, grouped around a lushly planted, 18,000-square-foot Water Court," explains the museum's announcement.

"At the time of the opening, the building will feature a number of spaces dedicated to single-artist installations, including major works by Michael Heizer, Roni Horn, On Kawara, Brice Marden, Lygia Pape, Charles Ray, and Cy Twombly, among others. In addition, a presentation of 65 works by 52 artists will occupy the largest room in the Pavilions, a column-free space of 9,000 square feet. The exhibi...

The WSJ's review of the Corning Glass Museum minimalist makeover

2015-04-29T14:23:00-04:00

In over 140 years of making glass, [...] Corning Inc. has also established a reputation for commissioning first-rate works of architecture at its home base in this small city in the Finger Lakes region of New York. [...] And now there’s a Contemporary Art + Design Wing by Thomas Phifer and Partners. Mr. Phifer is a New York architect whose intensely crafted minimalist sensibility comes as close as any American architect has to a Japanese aesthetic.

Previously: An (almost seamless) Glass Museum

Winner of Austin’s Waller Creek Design Competition

2012-11-30T18:39:00-05:00

The multidisciplinary design team led by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and Thomas Phifer & Associates was recently named winner of Design Waller Creek: A Competition. Organized by the Austin, TX-based Waller Creek Conservancy, this international design competition called for ideas to revitalize a 7-mile stretch of Waller Creek, a neglected Austin urban ecosystem, and thus turning a "currently fragmented and undervalued section of the city into a vibrant, livable, and workable district."