David Adjaye's ruby-red art museum in San Antonio, Texas is set to open to the public in October 2019. It is the Ghanian-British architect's first project in Texas. Famous for his behemoth buildings, Ruby City—which is described by Adjaye himself as a "very shy building"—offers a quiet stop in between his career-defining National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC and his next two projects, the U.K Holocaust Memorial and the National Cathedral of Ghana.
Nevertheless, the blushed building offers itself as a crown jewel to a Texan city looking to reactive itself after decades of sprawl. The art museum is designed with this urban future in mind and will be part of a growing campus, the brainchild of philanthropist and heiress to the Pace Foods fortune Linda Pace, whose meditation garden, Chris Park, and exhibition space, Studio, will sit adjacent to the forthcoming museum that will house her eponymous foundation's permanent art collection.
Taking its name from its red concrete cladding, the vision for Ruby City was first imagined by Mrs. Pace, who became acquainted with David Adjaye in 2007 shortly before her passing. Her sketch for a ruby structure would become the rough outline for Adjaye, whose "goal was to translate Linda's idea into a building that will do justice to her legacy," he said. "Linda had a clear vision for how the institution should be an inspirational space for the community and interact with its surroundings, drawing visitors into the jewel-like structure while connecting to the San Antonio landscape."
Inspired by the Spanish Missions found throughout the Southwest, Adjaye designed the 14,000 square-foot building with an exterior skin made of a precast concrete fabricated in Mexico City and designed to withstand the scorching Texas sun. To give the angular, double-cantilevered structure a ruby hue, concrete panels were made from red rock aggregate and red sand. Recycled red glass and the mineral mica were mixed in to add a glittering finish and bring Pace's vision to life.
"With his bold sense of volume and materials, David has interpreted Linda‘s dream city into a faceted, beckoning form, a Ruby City," said Linda Pace Foundation Trustee Kathryn Kanjo. When it opens in October, Ruby City will house major works by artists including Isaac Julien, Jennifer Steinkamp, Kiki Smith, Do Ho Suh and Wangechi Mutu, among many others. It will be free and open to the public year round.
I really like the use of naturally colored materials to produce the red colors - not just because it's cool/neat, but also because it sets a more attainable expectation for the color variation in precast concrete panels.
I've refereed more than one or two dogfights between a design team and a precast concrete manufacturer over color accuracy and uniformity. Never a good time, especially when you're telling an architect that his precast panel specification refers to PCI standards that call for quality acceptance to be judged from a 20-ft minimum viewing distance...lol.
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You can find Linda Pace's sketch here:
https://www.texasmonthly.com/t...
As well as more about her. And I assume she influenced the name.
Looks pretty good. He's been burning it up lately with the Black concrete on that NY tower and now this.
I really like the use of naturally colored materials to produce the red colors - not just because it's cool/neat, but also because it sets a more attainable expectation for the color variation in precast concrete panels.
I've refereed more than one or two dogfights between a design team and a precast concrete manufacturer over color accuracy and uniformity. Never a good time, especially when you're telling an architect that his precast panel specification refers to PCI standards that call for quality acceptance to be judged from a 20-ft minimum viewing distance...lol.
Can always tighten up the spec, but it'll cost ya.
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