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.

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 volume and punctured by square corner openings that work to affect the movement of a sundial inside. 

The architects explain: “We have chosen 2.10 [meters] as the size of the opening so that, when located on walls that are in contact with the floor, they have suitable dimensions to serve as doorways. The two holes thus positioned, will be entrance doors to our white and luminous cubic enclosure. [...] Following simple logic, we eliminated the opening corresponding to the floor plane. In addition, we created a particularly interesting feature by drilling a 2.10 x 2.10 deep hole in the center of the wall, so that the entire spatial operation can be understood at a glance.”

A multi-purpose basement level that can double as an auditorium space also contains a mezzanine-level café and museum store. The use of cast concrete and other spare industrial materials gives curators an ideal “aesthetically neutral environment” for the display of its post-war and contemporary collection. A sunken exterior courtyard completes the design, whose site excavation created enough raw material for artist Michelangelo Pistoletto to reuse in a long-conceived new permanent earthwork piece that carries a message of continued artistic explorations and a sustainable future. 

Approximately 90% of the labor used in construction was sourced from within a 20-minute radius of the job site. Magazzino says the project was realized twenty years after the working relationship between the architects and museum founders Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu began, ushering in a new chapter for the institution that is currently the sole museum dedicated to the exhibition of Italian art in the United States. 

Campo Baeza describes his vision: “We built the Robert Olnick Pavilion like a poem: A white cube traversed by light. The main space will embody the beauty of the artwork it exhibits, and with an isotropic design that carves an opening into every corner, each detail will be touched by magnificent sunlight. Not unlike the excitement of birth, it is with great anticipation that we deliver this second building to the museum.”

Quismondo, whose 2008 co-design with Baeza for the founders’ private residence was received with broad critical acclaim, added: “It feels as though we’re closing a cycle that started 20 years ago.”

Tours of the pavilion are included as part of this year’s Archtober festival Building of the Day programming and will take place on Saturday, October 28th. (Tickets can be found here.) Magazzino will stage exhibitions on the art and furniture designs of Mario Schifano, Ettore Spalletti. and Carlo Scarpa to open the new Pavilion. Baeza will also complete work on his firm's first U.S. office project in Miami by the end of next year.