Archinect - News

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According to the Glenstone, the film features previously unpublished reflections from the artist and the museum's Director and Co-Founder, Emily Rales, along with other key collaborators.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

Mies van der Rohe's rediscovered early-50s design opens at Indiana University

2022-02-22T16:17:00-05:00

A rediscovered 70-year-old Mies van der Rohe design that was reimagined for the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University has been inaugurated after the six-year-old institution announced the official opening of one of the most interesting pieces of academic architecture in recent memory.

Based on the architect’s abandoned 1952 plans for a fraternity on the Bloomington campus, the team at Thomas Phifer and Partners were able to rework the original design into an expanded home for the school’s faculty and students beginning in the spring semester.

Image © Anna Powell Denton

The process began in 2013 after Sidney Eskenazi, a member of the fraternity that commissioned the design originally, informed IU’s then-president Michael A. McRobbie about drawings that had previously been thought by many to have been lost. A research endeavor thus was conducted with assistance from MoMA and the Art Institute of Chicago that unearthed the additional documentation essential...

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...

Renderings released for Warsaw's new Museum of Modern Art

2015-09-25T08:58:00-04:00

Thomas Phifer and Partners has released remarkably boxy renderings for The Museum of Modern Art and TR Warszawa Theater in Warsaw, Poland. The renderings hint at a more complex internal spatial arrangement, a la The New World Symphony in Miami, Florida, but from the outside they are undoubtedly square.

The idea behind the design is that "the museum, theater, and forum form an ensemble working simultaneously together while remaining distinct from each other and the context." Visitors will be able to access the museum from all sides, while the architecture of the theater "reflects TR Warszawa's varied programming."

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

An (almost seamless) Glass Museum

2015-04-17T23:47:00-04:00

This combination of high-tech and hands-on making would be repeated over and over in the process of designing, curating and fitting out the wing

Last month Alexandra Lange reviewed the Corning Museum of Glass’s new 100,000-square-foot Contemporary Art + Design Wing, by Thomas Phifer and Partners.

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Rales

2013-04-29T11:48:00-04:00

Before Mr. Phifer, the architect, began designing the new building, he used a stack of about 80 flash cards or “inspiration boards,” as he called them, to get a sense of the Rales’s tastes and vision. There were pictures of Shaker villages and ancient art, rock gardens and a floor sculpture by Carl Andre.

Carol Vogel visited Glenstone, home of the semi-public, art collection of Mitchell and Emily Rales in Potomac, Md. Currently housed in a sleek 25,000-square-foot museum by Charles Gwathmey, the owners have plans for a major expansion designed by Tom Phifer. As proposed the project consists of a series of interconnecting pavilions for permanent installations, each devoted to a single artist, as well as a large gallery for special exhibitions.