Archinect - News

Following a Frank Gehry overhaul, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is hiring an exhibition designer

2024-04-24T17:28:00-04:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Deputy Director, Occupancy Management - Real Estate at the MTA Metropolitan Transportation Authority, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for an Exhibition Designer at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The role calls for an individual who will design special exhibitions, gallery projects, and gallery furnishings for the display of works of art in the museum. Specific tasks may include managing the design and documentation process for exhibitions, creating technical drawings and models of objects and spaces, and developing schedules for construction and object installation. Among the requirements for the role are model-making skills, design training and experience, and preferably a degree in art, architecture, or art history.

The museum's North Entrance, for the first time in decades, was restored to public use in 2019. Steve Hall © Hall + Merrick Photographers, 2019, cour...

Sam Lubell on cultural institutions’ newfound embrace of landscape architecture

2024-04-23T18:30:00-04:00

[...] such projects have fundamentally transformed in recent years, reflecting, among other things, seismic shifts in both museums’ priorities and the profession of landscape architecture, as well as a surge in interest in outdoor space because of the pandemic. The first rule: don’t dare call them gardens. These are sophisticated landscapes integrating — and enhancing — institutions’ missions while also encouraging education, sustainability and a much-needed sense of civic welcome.

Sam Lubell of the New York Times talks to Walter Hood, William Fain, and Kate Orff for a survey focused on the expanding role of landscape architecture in major American cultural sector projects.

He says: "The ascension of landscape in the museum world shows no signs of abating." Projects of note include the Hirshhorn Museum’s debated Hiroshi Sugimoto-led sculpture garden redesign, Studio-MLAand Frederick Fisher and Partners’ work for the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, and the forthcoming Calder Gardens in Philadelphia from Piet Oudolf and Herzog & de Meuron.

"Museums are places where you can say something about the culture. Where we can begin to vet some of these things that we don’t want to talk about. It goes back to the idea of these being the new civic spaces, where honest conversations can be had," Walter Hood told him. (A look at his firm's contributions to the new International African American Museum in South Carolina by Moody Nolan and Pei Cobb Freed can be found ...

LACMA shares custom-built glass facade details in new spring construction update

2024-04-16T13:39:00-04:00

New updates have been shared recently by the Los Angeles Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), charting progress on the $750 million new David Geffen Galleries from Peter Zumthor that is expected to finish construction by the end of this year.

According to the museum's most recent April 5th update, interior walls and exterior glazing are being installed on the site’s western side, facing north to Wilshire Boulevard. Work on the building’s MEPs is now underway, and the concrete pour for the roof decks has been completed to the east side of the site. Formwork, rebar installation, and concrete pours for the roof decks are also advancing on the Spaulding Lot.

This follows the March 8th update that detailed the removal of the site’s prominent tower crane. LACMA has yet to release a public opening date. (A recent look inside the project with its contractor Clark Construction can be found here.)

Image courtesy LACMA

Also of interest are the 243 individual custom-made glass facade components...

Take a look inside Allied Works' Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State ahead of June opening

2024-04-11T12:15:00-04:00

Allied Works’ collaboration with Reed Hilderbrand for the new Palmer Museum of Art at Pennsylvania State University is closing in on its June 1st opening. The firm has shared new photos previewing its work ahead of the inauguration, which will culminate a two-year construction period for a cost of $85 million.

The 73,000-square-foot building is defined by interlocking sandstone-clad pavilions contained within double-height volumes. These allow for unique spatial variations in each of the 20 new galleries, highlighting the diversity of its collection to visitors.

Image: Jeremy Bittermann/JSBA

An overhead skybridge — the new Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross Gateway — links both wings while establishing panoramic vistas of the university's Arboretum and H.O. Smith Botanic Garden outside. —

Image: Jeremy Bittermann/JSBA

Small exterior courtyards are created by the design, which is similar in concept to Allied Works' 2008 Dutchess County Guest House in upstate New York and the firm's shortlisted compet...

Safdie Architects shares construction update for Crystal Bridges Museum expansion

2024-04-04T12:41:00-04:00

The multi-year expansion of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is moving forward with an anticipated completion in 2025. Safdie Architects has shared photos of its construction progress via an Instagram post published Wednesday, April 3rd, from the site in Bentonville, Arkansas.

The project adds two new galleries worth a total of 100,000 square feet to the campus, increasing the size of its existing exhibition spaces by 65% while adding another 50% to its overall footprint. Safdie has been working on a master plan for the site, which includes the original pavilions he completed in 2011, for over 25 years.

Watch him speak with the museum's founder, Alice Walton, about its design here.

The project will culminate as his second American museum expansion following his work for the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts in 2003.

Next up, the firm is working on a new ski resort/residential concept in Vermont with PWP Landscape Architecture.

View this post on Instagram ...

Snøhetta's 'whimsical children's museum' takes shape in El Paso

2024-04-02T11:52:00-04:00

New construction photographs published by Snøhetta via social media show substantial progress on the El Paso Children's Museum, designed with Exigo Architecture.

We first reported on the scheme in 2018 when Snøhetta won the competition for the project. In 2020, the firm unveiled a completed design for the 70,000-square-foot museum, which will sit in El Paso's Downtown Arts district.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Snøhetta (@snohetta)

Through an unorthodox use of geometries, the building seeks to distinguish itself from the rest of the local skyline. The rectilinear base is wrapped in glass, allowing for natural light and interior views for the public on the outside. A succession of barrel vaults, visible in the construction photographs, add a rhythmic quality to the structure.

Diamond Schmitt presents New Brunswick Museum design

2024-03-31T08:00:00-04:00

Canadian practice Diamond Schmitt Architects, along with Associate Architect EXP, has unveiled the design of the new home of the New Brunswick Museum (NBM) in Saint John, New Brunswick.

Canada’s oldest continuing museum, the NBM’s footprint is set to expand, with its research work and exhibitions united within one sustainable, decarbonized facility.

Rendering by PLAY-TIME Courtesy of Diamond Schmitt.

The design integrates the east wing of the museum’s historic Collections and Research Center and adds five new wings to the north. The new facility will span 134,000 square feet. A new main entrance on street level will lead visitors into a multi-story, public great room. In addition to its use for the museum, this space will host community gatherings, festivals, events, and receptions. It will feature a boutique, café, ticketing services, and a public “Introduction to New Brunswick” gallery. Exhibition galleries on the second floor will overlook the great room.

Rendering by PLAY-TIME...

The Broad taps Diller Scofidio + Renfro again for major expansion

2024-03-27T18:33:00-04:00

Big news for architecture and art fans alike coming out of Los Angeles today, where The Broad just announced plans for a major expansion project to the tune of $100 million.

The reveal of the new proposal, which will reportedly increase the available gallery space by 70%, comes nearly ten years after the existing building opened to much fanfare on Downtown LA's Grand Avenue arts and culture corridor in 2015 to allow free public access to the vast art collection of philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad.

For the design of the expansion, the museum has commissioned the original architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) again, whose initial renderings hint at a continuation of their "veil and vault" concept.

"The exterior of the expansion echoes the surface appearance of the vault — as if this core had been exposed and 'unveiled' — symbolically expressing The Broad’s commitment to access while playfully inverting the visual vocabulary of the current building," the architects describe...

SO – IL presents designs for their new Williams College Museum of Art expansion

2024-03-08T13:48:00-05:00

SO – IL’s plans for an extension of the Williams College Museum of Art in western Massachusetts have been made public as the institution prepares to house its important collection in a free-standing and purpose-built new home for the first time in its 100-year history.

The project will enhance the museum’s mission as an on-campus educational resource while creating a new gateway between the college and the community of Williamstown.

SO – IL says they envision their plan to culminate in 2027. When it does, the project will yield a total of 15,000 square feet worth of new gallery spaces in a three-story structure that houses a 6,400-square-foot study center, auditorium, art studios, and a café. Reed Hilderbrand will be included to complete the project's landscaping. The project was announced in 2021 following a two-year programming study that was made in consultation with TenBerke through the pandemic.

Image credit: Jeudi.Wang, courtesy SO–IL and the Williams College Museum of Art

Ref...

Art and science come together as a comprehensive whole in EskewDumezRipple's new Bruce Museum expansion

2024-03-07T13:00:00-05:00

The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, has shared photos of its recent expansion project that was completed by EskewDumezRipple in April of 2023 at a cost of $67 million.

Drawing inspiration from coastal New England granite quarries, the project added a total of 42,000 square feet via the new William L. Richter Art Wing. The expansion was undertaken to allow the museum’s art and science holdings to expand and be better interpreted as a coherent whole.

The design also created an easier access point to its grounds, replete with an additional landscape component from Reed Hilderbrand.

Photo: Tim Hursley

"We can host the community in a way we’ve never been able to before," the Bruce Museum's Executive Director, Robert Wolterstorff, who is also trained as an architectural historian, explains. "In the past, we had no permanent collections galleries. By adding these spaces, the museum is able to showcase works that local collectors have generously donated, providing...

Snøhetta's Joslyn Art Museum expansion set to open in September

2024-02-26T14:06:00-05:00

The Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, has shared new renderings and construction photos to go along with the announcement of the impending completion of a two-year, $100 million expansion project designed by Snøhetta and Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture.

The design establishes the new Rhonda & Howard Hawks Pavilion on campus while adding another 40% worth of gallery spaces to house the museum’s fast-growing collection. Joslyn’s CEO Jack Becker complimented the firms’ "sensitive and imaginative approach" in planning the 42,000-square-foot extension, which is one part of the broad-ranging reinvestment the state and other private entities are making into downtown over the next decades.

Rendering courtesy of Moare

A pink-colored aggregate was added to pre-cast panels on the pavilion’s exterior, referencing the marble materials used in the facades of the Joslyn’s other existing structures from 1931 and 1994. This trio of buildings welcomes the public via a new entrance made at Da...

Álvaro Siza's self-named Serralves Museum expansion opens in Portugal

2024-02-19T12:28:00-05:00

The Serralves Foundation in Porto, Portugal, has shared photos of its recently inaugurated new wing designed by and named for the country’s beloved Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Álvaro Siza.

The 45,000-square-foot expansion is the fifth building designed by Siza for the foundation after the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (1999), Manoel de Oliveira Cinema House (2019), Gardeners’ House (2021), and the restored Serralves Art Déco Villa (2021).

"With a wing dedicated to the Permanent Collection and Architecture, the Serralves Museum is more than ever an institution where the present is fully activated and where the recent past is settled and decanted. It allows the institution to fully take responsibility for its history and legacy, as well as for its role as the leading institution in Portugal dedicated to the history and the present of contemporary art and culture," Director Philippe Vergne stated.

Photo: FG+SG

The new wing was realized in Serralves Park to the western side...

Meier Partners completes Sorol Art Museum in South Korea

2024-01-30T18:43:00-05:00

Meier Partners has shared news of the recent completion of its Sorol Art Museum design in Gangneung, South Korea. The 336,500-square-foot project is meant to provide space for an immersive dialogue between Korean artists and the outside world and is the firm’s first completed work since its 2021 restructuring.

The building's internal structure is defined by a dual concept that arranges space into introverted and extroverted inter-dynamics based on the aesthetic theory of Korean Confucian philosophy. According to the architects, the external form utilizes the hillside’s natural topography to present the art inside on a pedestal to visitors in a way that also establishes the connection between nature and architecture as another core tenet of their experiences.

Image courtesy Meier Partners/Yongbaek Lee

Curators will have the option of controlling the gradations of light sources, both natural and artificial, inside the large skylit main exhibition space and smaller galleries. In a proj...

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios wins re-tendered bid for International Slavery Museum revamp in Liverpool

2024-01-23T19:04:00-05:00

National Museums Liverpool (NML) has named Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios as the replacement for Adjaye Associates on the design team for the new International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum.

The opportunity to replace Adjaye on the project came after the museum cut ties with his firm last summer following the revelation of sexual misconduct allegations in the Financial Times that preceded a string of high-profile project cancellations in the United States, the UK, and Saudi Arabia.

The NML redevelopment, which was first announced in 2021, has since increased in cost to £58 million (or about $73.5 million USD). Work will now begin once more from the RIBA Plan of Work scale's stage 3 (Spatial Coordination) through to the completion stage 7. The NML says this will entail adding an entirely new entrance inside the Martin Luther King Jr. building and additional major renovations to the site’s Hartley Pavilion.

Previously on Archinect: National Museums Liverpool re-tenders Slavery Mu...

MAD designs Chinese waterfront arts center as a ‘gentle ripple by the lake’

2024-01-04T11:35:00-05:00

MAD Architects has designed a waterfront arts center in China’s Foshan City described as a “gentle ripple by the lake.” When completed in 2029, the Nanhai Art Center will cover an area of 640,000 square feet, housing a grand theater, a museum, and a sports center.

Image credit: MAD Architects

The scheme has been conceived as a “continuous wave of water,” with the three main buildings sitting underneath a floating canopy comprised of a white, translucent ETFE membrane. The resulting blurring of outdoor and indoor spaces seeks to emphasize the prominence of the nearby lake in the scheme, encouraging the local community to embrace the waterfront as a part of the scheme’s cultural function.

Image credit: MAD Architects

“The traditional culture of Nanhai is in the drum beat and boat drift during the dragon festival boat race and in the kung-fu in the lion dance,” MAD founder Ma Yansong about the site’s context. “Watching them, you can feel the dynamic vibrant, and innovative spirit from an...

Plans for new LACMA-backed Las Vegas art museum emerge

2023-12-27T08:00:00-05:00

Around three years after the Nevada Museum of Art (NMA) in Reno suspended its plans to move forward with a Las Vegas branch of the museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the foundation of the philanthropist Elaine P. Wynn have announced an unprecedented partnership to launch a new museum in the city called the Las Vegas Museum of Art (LVMA).

As The Art Newspaper reported, plans for a new Las Vegas Museum of Art have the approximately 60,000-90,000-square-foot cultural facility commence in 2028 and cost around $150 million to construct in five-acre Symphony Park. LACMA is supporting the effort, which will (hopefully) fill the void left after the first Las Vegas Museum of Art closed its doors in 2009 over a lack of funding. Backers now have until 2025 to submit a design proposal and project timeline to the city.

“Our efforts to work with local and regional museums to share our collections and programs to larger and more diverse audiences are a priority in this joint effort,” a spokesperson for LACMA told TAN. “Las Vegas is currently the only city among the 30 largest in the U.S. to lack a standalone art museum [that is not a member of American Alliance of Museums]. It promises to be a valuable addition to the city and the cultural landscape of the region.”

No architects have been named to the project at this time.

...

Allied Works' Palmer Museum of Art is set for a 2024 opening at Penn State

2023-12-14T14:21:00-05:00

The Allied Works-designed Palmer Museum of Art expansion project at Pennsylvania State University has shared new photos of its construction progress to go along with an announced opening date of June 1 next year.

Reed Hilderbrand is coordinating with the firm to deliver the landscaped portion of the LEED Silver-certified design. The project doubles the museum’s existing footprint by adding a new 73,000-square-foot building with 20 new galleries, a café, education, research, and events spaces situated amongst the 370-acre university Arboretum and serviced by a sculpture path and outdoor terraces.

Dale Chihuly’s site-specific sculptural commission, “Lupine Blue Persian Wall,” will be debuted as an anchor that welcomes visitors to the main access point and is framed by the museum’s feature staircase.

Photo by Jeremy Bittermann/JSBA, courtesy of Allied Works.

Locally quarried sandstone cladding produces a naturalistic effect on the exterior of each of the building’s interlocking pavilio...

Peterson Rich Office will lead major renovation of the Met's key public areas

2023-12-01T17:09:00-05:00

Peterson Rich Office (PRO) has been announced as the architect of a major renovation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City that will overhaul its Fifth Avenue entrance, gift shop, and other public areas over a period of several years.

The Met says this work will be conducted in two phases: the new gallery will be enacted first near the Great Hall, followed by the renovation of the outside plaza area and a reconfiguration of existing dining areas.

The gallery will be completed in 2026, resulting in an 11,500-square-foot space for The Costume Institute’s annual spring show and other curatorial activities. The former employee's entrance at 83rd Street and Fifth Avenue will also be remade to allow better public access to the building. Beyer Blinder Belle is attached to the project as the executive architect, following their renovation of the museum’s European paintings galleries that was completed this month.

Related on Archinect: The Met's Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli details hi...

The Met's Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli details his work as Vice President of Capital Projects to the New York Times

2023-11-15T19:24:00-05:00

The New York Times recently spoke to Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli about his work as the Vice President of Capital Projects for NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A Harvard GSD alum and former Associate Principal at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Hernandez-Eli had previously worked in design and construction for the New York City Economic Development Corporation before joining the institution, where he is now responsible for a $2 billion capital improvements initiative that will prove to be one of the defining aspects of Director Max Hollein's tenure.

“The emphasis on environmental performance and dealing with the climate crisis is not separate and apart from the discussion around aesthetics,” Hernandez-Eli told NYT Art & Culture contributor Ted Loos last month. “I think that oftentimes those two things get divorced. You’re either focused on what a thing looks like or how a thing performs. Our argument here is that they’re not mutually exclusive, they’re merged.”

Previously on Archinect: Frida E...

Pittsburgh's Institute for Contemporary Art reveals ZGF-designed expansion at Carnegie Mellon University

2023-11-13T14:13:00-05:00

ZGF Architects has announced plans for an expansion of the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

As part of the design, the soon-to-be-renamed Institute for Contemporary Art Pittsburgh will increase in size by three times its current operating capacity. Located near other important cultural institutions inside of the new Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences at the edge of Carnegie Mellon’s campus on Forbes Avenue, the 29,000-square-foot space serves as an interdisciplinary “advocate for new ideas and an aggregator of communities” in dialogue with the neighboring Carnegie Museum of Art and a growing audience of scholars, students, and faculty.

Image: Atchain, courtesy Carnegie Mellon University

The program calls for a 338,000-square-foot complex of buildings to be divided into two components: a looping wing that contains the ICA and other university spaces, and a set-back tower that will be the new home of the CMU Mellon College of Science ...

Pentagram utilizes architectural forms to create a new visual identity for the Memphis Art Museum

2023-11-02T20:04:00-04:00

Pentagram has released materials showcasing their new visual identity project undertaken for their clients at the Memphis Art Museum (formerly the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art) ahead of the completion of its Herzog & de Meuron-led expansion in 2025.

The lettering and logo included in the kit derive from cross-section drawings of the new 122,000-square-foot building, which will grace the center of downtown at Overton Park. The expanded museum also forms the anchor of a wider riverfront development master plan that will reorient the commercial/cultural district. Costs for the expansion have been reported around $180 million.

“We have worked with the greater Memphis community for years on our vision for a new museum, and as it begins to take shape, we are proud to see that it will be a place for community and connectivity unlike anything in our city’s history,” the museum's board president, Carl Person, told the Memphis Flyer newspaper recently about the institutional pivot. “It is tru...

Francis Kéré designs new virtual museum of stolen artifacts for UNESCO

2023-10-17T16:03:00-04:00

Francis Kéré has been announced as the architect of a new virtual museum of stolen cultural artifacts for UNESCO. The project will exhibit 3D versions of the objects while at the same time elevating the voices and narratives of the global communities from which they were taken.

Renderings released along with its announcement show a large transparent dome with gallery spaces lining a Guggenheim-like spiraling central ramp, inspired by the African baobab tree.

Image courtesy of UNESCO/Kéré Architecture

The 52,000 works displayed were digitally rendered using the Stolen Works of Art database of INTERPOL, the international police organization that tracks the trafficking of looted cultural artifacts globally.

Image courtesy of UNESCO/Kéré Architecture

UNESCO says this will become a "tool to raise awareness on the illicit trafficking and the importance of protecting cultural heritage among the relevant authorities, culture professionals, and the general public, notably young generations...

Take a look inside Magazzino Italian Art's new minimalist Robert Olnick Pavilion

2023-10-05T12:26:00-04:00

Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo of MQ Architecture have delivered a new 13,000-square-foot expansion to the ten-acre campus of Magazzino Italian Art in Cold Spring, New York.

Sited on the grounds perpendicular to Quismondo’s existing L-shaped main museum building from 2017, the Robert Olnick Pavilion repeats the scale, cornice lines, layout, and materiality of the older structure while adding much-needed room for educational and events programming in time for the start of the fall arts season. The pavilion was inaugurated in September, joining OMA and Cooper Roberston’s new AKG Art Museum expansion in Buffalo as one of the most important American cultural and museum sector commissions of the year.

Photo by Javier Callejas. Courtesy Magazzino Italian Art.

The scheme is designed to showcase the museum’s arte provera, Murano glass, and ceramics holdings, with two airy, light-filled galleries complemented by another cube-like “isotropic room” from Baeza elevated above the main v...

Snøhetta completes Vesterheim Commons, blending Norwegian and Midwestern cultures

2023-10-03T11:46:00-04:00

Snøhetta has completed work on the Vesterheim Commons in Decorah, Iowa. Part of Vesterheim, the National Norwegian-American Museum and Folk Art School, the new building and associated landscape seeks to “establish a new entry point and gathering space for a cultural campus.” Snøhetta served as the design architect and landscape architect for the project, with BNIM as the architect of record.

Image credit: Michael Grimm

The 8,000-square-foot building is marked on the street by a large wooden canopy inspired by boat designs. Off the street, a public reception lobby and event space “mirror the cozy and sheltered outdoor rooms of the surrounding park,” while upper-level galleries and a new digital production studio create spaces for showcasing art and artifacts.

Image credit: Michael Grimm

Image credit: Craig Dykers

Light is drawn into the lobby by a wood oculus above, while a flexible event space and new circulation areas create interior connections to Vesterhei...

WHY Architecture faces lawsuit over San Francisco Asian Art Museum expansion project

2023-09-27T17:47:00-04:00

WHY Architecture has been named as a defendant in a new lawsuit by the Asian Art Museum Foundation of San Francisco after allegedly failing to meet the institution’s design goals for a $38 million expansion project that was completed in March of 2020.

The suit was first entered in the County Superior Court in 2021. News of the action was made public via a museum press release this week, wherein the Foundation provided further details on what they said was a breach of contract related to its plan for the project that went over budget due to subsequent repairs.

“[The Pavilion] was delivered late, and as originally constructed, it failed to meet even the minimum museum-quality standards: it leaked in multiple locations, its interior environment was of inadequate quality, and its rooftop terrace was unusable. It was only through substantial intervention by the Foundation, at its own significant cost, that these major issues were identified and corrected, and a first-class, museum-qualit...

National Museums Liverpool re-tenders Slavery Museum design contract after Adjaye departure

2023-09-19T18:55:00-04:00

National Museums Liverpool (NML) has issued a new tender for design contracts for the anticipated new Liverpool Slavery Museum a month after its original architect David Adjaye was formally removed from the project over sexual misconduct allegations that were first made public in June.

The announcement was picked up today by UK-based publications. NML says whoever is selected will shepherd the project from the RIBA Plan of Work scale's stage 3 (Spatial Coordination) to the completion stage 7 (Use) in coordination with community partners and the museum. The hope is for whoever takes over the project to complete the planned overhauls of Albert Dock's existing Hartley Pavilion and the Martin Luther King Jr. Building, which houses the new museum. Ralph Appelbaum Associates will remain on as the project’s exhibition designers as well.

Previously on Archinect: David Adjaye accused of sexual misconduct by three former employees

Adjaye had already stepped away from the larger waterfront rede...

PAU begins Rock & Roll Hall of Fame expansion in Cleveland

2023-09-13T14:00:00-04:00

PAU has shared details of its expansion project of the I.M. Pei-designed Rock & Roll Hall of Fame museum in Cleveland ahead of next month’s anticipated groundbreaking.

The initiative will add a triangular structure to Pei’s iconic original glass pyramid design, featuring a new entrance lobby, education center, offices, and a 6,000-square-foot multipurpose space that’s meant to increase its overall footprint by 33% while activating public space along a currently underutilized section of the city’s Lake Eerie waterfront.

Rendering courtesy of Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU)

The total 50,000-square-foot design evokes the museum’s architectural lineage within the new addition, where solid shapes pronounced as asymmetries serve as the visual markers of the building’s various programmatic elements combined under a tilted angular roof and façade composed of steel and granite in further reference to the region’s industrial character.

Rendering courtesy of Practice for Architect...

Reed Hilderbrand signs on for a $22 million sculpture park at Louisville's Speed Art Museum

2023-08-15T17:54:00-04:00

A new three-acre sculpture park design for Louisville, Kentucky’s Speed Art Museum has been unveiled by Reed Hilderbrand Landscape Architecture in a preview of the project, which is expected to host some 500,000 visitors a year after it opens in 2025.

The firm’s $22 million Speed Outdoors makeover will recreate an area surrounding the museum with native flora, a water management system, and 150 new trees in coordination with the adjacent University of Louisville and with a 13-artwork bequest from local collectors.

Image courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand Landscape Architecture

The Museum’s Director, Raphaela Platow, said it will also instill Frederick Law Olmsted’s "dream of a Louisville connected by public parklands" while serving as a "welcoming forum for the whole community to connect with art, nature, and each other for generations to come."

Image courtesy of Reed Hilderbrand Landscape Architecture

The sculptural work of Zaha H...

BIG-designed National Juneteenth Museum receives $1 million grant

2023-08-09T13:45:00-04:00

Bank of America has awarded a $1 million grant towards the development of the National Juneteenth Museum, designed by BIG. The money will contribute to the project’s estimated $70 million price tag. Located in Fort Worth’s Historic Southside neighborhood, the museum will serve as an epicenter for awareness and preservation of Juneteenth’s history. It also aims to revitalize the surrounding area by acting as an economic catalyst.

The 50,000-square-foot museum takes on a handcrafted design, utilizing materials such as heavy timber. It also draws on the local architecture of gabled rooftops. The structure’s undulating roof results in a series of peaks and valleys that combine to form a star-shaped courtyard in the middle of the museum. In addition, the building will feature 10,000 square feet of exhibit galleries, a 250-seat theater to host lectures, a speaker series, performances, and more, a black box, a business incubator for local entrepreneurs, and a food hall featuring local vend...

Robert A.M. Stern Architects adds to Notre Dame's arts educational offerings with modernizing Raclin Murphy Museum of Art redesign

2023-07-31T08:00:00-04:00

Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) has shared design details of the new Raclin Murphy Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame ahead of the project’s first phase opening in South Bend later this fall.

The 70,000-square-foot facility is built to hold a growing collection of over 31,000 art objects, one of the largest for an American university or college, in addition to featuring a slate of exhibition strategies designed to “encourage ongoing dialogues with works of art” for Notre Dame’s student body. As the firm’s brief stated, 91% of the class of 2022 graduates reported having used the former Snite Museum for academic research at some point during their undergraduate careers.

Inside the museum’s neoclassical building, the new facility delivers a multi-level atrium space that welcomes visitors at the ground floor level and directs into the first series of thematic galleries, which house the university’s collection of American, European, and African art. A suite devoted to In...