: Construction has begun on a $19.5 million expansion and renovation project for the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tenn. Los Angeles based firm, Randall Stout Architects, Inc., designed the 29,200 square foot addition.
Their plan, which sits atop dramatic cliffs overlooking the Tennessee River, attempts to bring cohesiveness to a 1904 historic mansion and 1970’s East and North Wing additions that comprise the existing museum complex.
Visually, the addition mimics its surroundings. It is clad in oxidized zinc panels that resemble the 80-foot limestone bluff on which it sits, and its dynamic stainless steel roof emulates the neighboring Tennessee River. Located on the west side of the mansion, the addition adds a Temporary Exhibitions Gallery, an atrium-like lobby, auditorium, café, gift shop, and outdoor sculpture terrace to the museum.
“I want the Hunter Addition to connect with the heart and soul of Chattanooga," said Stout, "Whether the building forms evoke images such as the dramatic beauty of the Tennessee River and its rock formations or the Giant Hawk from Cherokee legend, they are, from every city vantage point, reaching out to welcome you.â€
The new addition will eventually be connected to Chattanooga’s downtown by a pedestrian bridge, also designed by Randall Stout in collaboration with Dertchick Henley Wilkerson Architects. As Joseph Giovannini, said in his key note speech at the AFA’s Directors Forum this past spring, “The design imagery of [The Hunter Museum of American Art] may reference the rock outcroppings and strata of the cliffs below, but philosophically and formally, it extends out to the city...The project is an integral component to the 21st Century Waterfront plan, an ambitious public/private redevelopment partnership.†It is scheduled to be completed in late spring of 2005.
Audrey Beaton
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