Archinect - News

Foster-designed Norton Museum of Art expansion prepares for grand opening Feb 9

2019-02-04T14:14:00-05:00

The Norton, which closed last July to finish three years of renovations, will re-open to the public on Feb. 9 with eight new exhibitions and a $100 million face-lift, adding 12,000 square feet of gallery space, along with new classrooms, a restaurant, a sculpture garden and a 210-seat auditorium.

Almost exactly two years after its ceremonial groundbreaking, the Norman Foster-designed Norton Museum of Art expansion has been completed and will open its doors to the public this Saturday, February 9.

Image courtesy of Foster + Partners

The expansion plan preserved the institution's original 1941 east wing as a real treasure trove of contemporary art. "Now in the east wing are new paintings and sculptures from contemporary artists such as Kara Walker and Ed Ruscha, Damien Hirst and Anselm Keifer," writes Phillip Valys for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. "In two new European galleries, there are masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet."

Executive architect on the project is Boston-based CBT Architects, while landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol designed the gardens.

Learn more about the Norton Museum of Art expansion here.

Foster + Partners to redesign Norton Museum of Art public garden, reopening February 2019

2017-11-13T15:04:00-05:00

The Norton Museum of Art, located in West Palm Beach Florida, recently announced design plans for the first public garden designed by Norman Foster. In addition to the sub-tropical garden, Foster's design features new walkways, green spaces, and a new grand lawn. Native flora will reinforce the museum's relationship to the landscape and provide additional social space for the community. Foster's garden is an extension of The New Norton, the Museum's $100 million design expansion by Foster + Partners. The transformative Norton expansion held its groundbreaking ceremony in February 2016 and currently predicts a grand reopening set for February 2019.

The J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Colonnade east garden view, Norton Museum of Art. Photo: Foster + Partners.

"From the beginning, we have conceived of the Norton expansion as an opportunity to create a New Norton [...] In our masterplan, it was important for us to define the Norton’s sense of place—in this case Florida’s lush subtropics....

Carlo Ratti Associati designs a floating plaza at West Palm Beach letting visitors walk on (and beneath) water

2016-11-03T14:25:00-04:00

Using some of the same design techniques used for responsive air chambers in submarines, Carlo Ratti Associati has designed a floating plaza/mixed retail center that will float on and adapt to the water level depending on how many people are currently walking on it. The plaza, which is linked to land via a comprehensive masterplan on the coast of Lake Worth Lagoon, will also include housing (whose property values will hopefully never be underwater). The plaza will also feature "an organic restaurant with its own hydroponic cultivations," making it a potentially self-sustaining enterprise.

The inventive use of underwater vessel technology is, to director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and founding partner Carlo Ratti, an entirely new way of conceiving architecture. Ratti describes his project as "carving" into the water. He goes on to say that “with this project, we aim to reclaim West Palm Beach’s connection to the natural elements that surroun...

Norton Museum of Art breaks ground on Foster + Partners-designed expansion project

2016-02-12T15:14:00-05:00

A ceremonial groundbreaking on February 6 marked the official kick off for construction of the ambitious Norton Museum of Art expansion in West Palm Beach, Florida. The event went hand-in-hand with the annual gala later that day celebrating the Museum’s 75th anniversary. Lord Foster, design architect of the expansion, personally attended the celebrations.

Read on for more information we've received from the Norton.

"Scheduled to open in 2018, the transformed West Wing includes a monumental entrance, a 35% increase in gallery space to showcase the Museum’s collection and inventive exhibitions, a stateof- the-art 210-seat auditorium, increased education space, and a “great hall” that will become the Museum’s social hub. A sculpture garden and additional green spaces will provide new areas for the Norton’s programming, creating a museum in a garden on the 6.3-acre campus."

"The Museum, which opened in 1941, was initially conceived by architect Marion Sims Wyeth as an elegant series of Art...

Foster + Partners-designed expansion of the Norton Museum of Art has already raised half of its funds

2015-01-14T13:20:00-05:00

As the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, prepares to break ground on its Foster + Partners—designed expansion in 2016, the institution has launched the second phase of its capital campaign, which has already raised nearly $34 million, more than half of the museum's $60 million goal. [...] "Foster + Partners' plan pays homage to the Museum's past by restoring the clarity and symmetry of the original building, but also looks to its future as a leading museum in Florida" [...]