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Snøhetta's Blanton New Grounds redesign opens at the University of Texas at Austin

2023-05-25T12:20:00-04:00

A recently completed project from three alumni Snøhetta staffers at the University of Texas at Austin’s Blanton Museum of Art has delivered an artistic intervention they say stands as a new gateway between the 51,000-student campus and its host city.

Principal and co-founder Craig Dykers, Managing Director Elaine Molinar, and Director John Newman, each School of Architecture graduates from the late-1980s, collaborated to enact a new canopy-like intervention that’s meant as a centerpiece to the museum’s $35 million Blanton New Grounds initiative.

Photo: Sloan Breeden Photography

Their solution involved a series of 40-by-30-foot metallic shade structures formed in the shape of flower petals to create a canopy of the new landscaped garden entrance to the museum while also framing Ellsworth Kelly’s 2018 monumental stone Austin chapel on the Blanton’s Moody Patio.

Photo: Sloan Breeden Photography

The petals double as a rainwat...

The Mountaineers: Craig Dykers and Elaine Molinar of Snøhetta on One-to-One #27

2016-06-13T17:47:00-04:00

Elaine Molinar joined founding partner Craig Dykers at Snøhetta's very beginning, when they won their first competition for the Alexandria Library in 1989. Since then, the firm has grown true to its mountainous namesake, expanding to four offices worldwide and winning pivotal cultural projects in architecture and design, among them the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, SFMOMA's expansion, the entrance pavilion at the National September 11 Memorial Museum, and Norway's new banknotes.

They both joined me on One-to-One to talk about their future hopes for the firm, Snøhetta's office culture, and their advice for working with your significant other (they've been a couple since the firm began).

Listen to One-to-One #27 with Craig Dykers and Elaine Molinar of Snøhetta:

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SNØHETTA establishes endowed scholarship for undergraduates at UTSOA

2012-05-09T14:01:00-04:00

"Scholarship allows for creativity in the midst of judgment and therefore we hope to honor the thrill of seeking with this gift." say Dykers and Molinar. "Willingness to expand the traditional definitions of architecture in order to pursue the tangential, with the goal of influencing one's architectural studies and future careers should be rewarded. With this scholarship, we honor the heritage of independent thinking at the UT Austin School of Architecture that so greatly influenced us."

The Snøhetta Endowed Scholarship in Architecture, established by Craig Dykers and Elaine Molinar, will make its first award to a student recipient in fall 2012.