Expert: Guy Nordenson and Associates | ArchDaily

Calder Gardens Museum / Herzog & de Meuron

Pilar Caballero — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 07:00:00 +0000

Calder Gardens is not a conventional museum. From the beginning, the client wanted a space that would provide a totally new, intimate, and ever-changing encounter with the work of Alexander Calder. While the building is still tasked with the typical technical requirements of a traditional museum, it is conceived as a new type of place for being with art: a place that provides an interplay between art, architecture, nature, people, and the surrounding city.

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego / Selldorf Architects

Andreas Luco — Fri, 24 May 2024 10:00:00 +0000

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) in La Jolla traces its origins to philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps. Her last home, a modern oceanfront dwelling completed in 1916 by Irving Gill, served as the Museum’s first location. Since opening in 1941, the Museum has undergone several architecturally distinct expansions; Mosher & Drew completed a series of expansions in 1950, 1960, and again in the late 1970s; and Venturi Scott Brown & Associates completed a renovation of MCASD’s La Jolla location in 1996. However, as the Museum’s art collection continued to expand, the building’s galleries became inadequate to display its holdings. In 2014 Selldorf Architects was tasked with developing new architecture that would expand and enhance spaces for art and the public. The new design includes the renovation of 28,000 square feet of existing spaces, as well as the addition of 46,400 square feet of new spaces to MCASD, effectively doubling the Museum’s existing square footage. Selldorf Architects’ new plan provides significantly more gallery space for the collection, creates a more welcoming and clear entry, and gives greater coherence to the site enhancing the Museum’s connection to its spectacular coastal setting.

Rubenstein Commons Institute for Advanced Study / Steven Holl Architects

Paula Pintos — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 06:00:00 +0000

The Rubenstein Commons at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, NJ, established in 1930, is a new commons building on the historic campus. It is sited near the Institute’s flagship 1939 building Fuld Hall where Albert Einstein spent his last thinking years.

Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Greenway / Thomas Phifer and Partners

Paula Pintos — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 06:00:00 +0000

The Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Greenway establishes a new recreation amenity in Austin, designed as a state-of-the-art venue for concerts as well as a shaded pavilion and lawn for the public. It is the first permanent outdoor venue for live music and other cultural performances in the City of Austin park.

Ruby City Contemporary Art Center / Adjaye Associates

Valeria Silva — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 07:00:00 +0000

Ruby City is a 14,000-square-foot contemporary art center, with 10,000- square feet of exhibition space, in San Antonio, TX, dedicated to providing a space for the city’s thriving creative community to experience works by both local and internationally acclaimed artists. Envisioned in 2007 by the late collector, philanthropist, and artist Linda Pace, Ruby City presents works from Pace’s own collection of more than 800 paintings, sculptures, installations, and video works.

Salvage Swings City of Dreams Pavilion / Somewhere Studio

Andreas Luco — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 15:00:00 +0000

Salvage Swings is a cross-laminated timber pavilion built on Roosevelt Island by the Arkansas based architecture practice Somewhere Studio led by Jessica Colangelo and Charles Sharpless, AIA. The project was the winner of the 2019 City of Dreams annual international design competition and served as the center piece of the FigmentNYC arts festival.

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture / Adjaye Associates + Freelon Adjaye Bond / SmithGroup

Florencia Mena — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 12:00:00 +0000

Winning the competition to design the National Museum of African American History and Culture has consolidated the practice’s US portfolio with arguably the nation’s most prestigious new building. Located on Constitution Avenue, adjacent to the National Museum of American History and the Washington Monument, the museum will house exhibit galleries, administrative spaces, theatre space and collections storage space for the NMAAHC. As lead designer for the Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup (FAB) team, David Adjaye’s approach has been to establish both a meaningful relationship to this unique site as well as a strong conceptual resonance with America’s deep and longstanding African heritage. The design rests on three cornerstones: the “corona” shape and form of the building; the extension of the building out into the landscape – the porch; and the bronze filigree envelope.

Steven Holl Architects Break Ground on Houston Museum of Fine Arts Extension

Sabrina Syed — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Steven Holl Architects break ground on Museum of Fine Arts extension in Houston, Texas.

Moody Center for the Arts / Michael Maltzan Architecture

Fernanda Castro — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 11:00:00 +0000

The Moody interior is intended to create a sense of openness and possibility. Sightlines transect through spaces, creating layered views of the myriad activities taking place within the building’s production, instructional and exhibition spaces. Views extend simultaneously along major corridors and out to the campus, providing an easy orientation point for visitors, students and faculty and facilitating direct access to studios, classrooms and shops. Extensive interior glazing offers views into learning, production and exhibition spaces to highlight the experience of the artistic process as a complement to the exhibition of finished works. Along the building’s north façade a set of wide stairs rises from the first floor and turns back toward the Moody’s interior, creating an interior amphitheater that serves as an informal social space.

Lakefront Kiosk / Ultramoderne

Igor Fracalossi — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 14:00:00 +0000

How much kiosk can you get for $75,000? Chicago Horizon probes this question through a quest to build the largest flat wood roof possible. Using Cross-Laminated Timber, a new carbon-negative engineered lumber product, in the largest dimensions commercially available, the kiosk aims to provide an excess of public space for the Architecture Biennial and Chicago beach-goers.

36 SML House / LEVENBETTS

Karen Valenzuela — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 09:00:26 +0000

36SML House is an 8,000 square foot house on a 1 1⁄4 acre suburban lot a half a mile from the sea. The primary design charge was to create a big, but informal house where a range of activities can occur and visual connections are myriad.

Corning Museum of Glass / Thomas Phifer and Partners

Diego Hernández — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 10:00:36 +0000

The Corning Museum of Glass North Wing Expansion provides 100,000 square feet of new space, including spacious light-filled galleries for its collection of contemporary works in glass, as well as one of the world’s largest facilities for glassblowing demonstrations and live glass design sessions.

Competition Entry: Saucier + Perrotte Designs Glass Pavilion for Montreal Botanical Garden

Karissa Rosenfield — Sat, 06 Dec 2014 01:00:00 +0000

Conceived as a natural extension of the existing pathways at Montreal’s Botanical Garden, Saucier + Perrotte architectes’ proposal for the “Espace Pour la Vie Glass Pavilion” competition was envisioned as an immersive glass shelter “eroded” within a lush landscape. The architects, who were also responsible for designing the garden’s 2001 First Nation Garden Pavilion, were among the competition finalists. You can learn more about their proposal, after the break.

Kimbell Art Museum Expansion / Renzo Piano Building Workshop + Kendall/Heaton Associates

Igor Fracalossi — Thu, 14 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The Kimbell Art Museum’s original building was designed by Louis Kahn in 1972. The new building by RPBW was recently inaugurated and establishes a close, respectful and frank dialogue with this powerful yet delicate older building.The new Piano Pavilion accommodates the museum’s growing exhibition and education programmes, allowing the original Kahn building to revert to the display of the museum’s permanent collection.

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Pavilion 5 Finalist Proposal / Saucier + Perrotte Architectes

Alison Furuto — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 01:00:00 +0000

Just as layers of history accumulate through time to offer varying perspectives on culture and environment, Saucier + Perrotte’s design for the Fifth Pavilion of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is composed of a series of mineral strata that form a home for the Hornstein collection of art. Floating gently above street level, each marble stratum is superimposed to produce a sculpted volume containing the collection and defining a space dedicated to the next generation of Montreal art lovers. Their proposal was recently announced as a finalist in the competition

The Ruth Lilly Visitors Pavilion / Marlon Blackwell Architect

Christopher Henry — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The Ruth Lilly Visitors Pavilion is the result of a studied relationship between building, land and art, and serves as both a threshold and a destination within the 100 Acres Art & Nature Park at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. An ipe screen lines a steel exoskeleton forming deck, wall and canopy, wrapping programmatic elements. The pavilion is constructed to touch the landscape lightly and allow for the free flow of rain and filtered sunlight through the structure.

Nanjing Sifang Art Museum / Steven Holl Architects

Kelly Minner — Fri, 20 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The new museum is sited at the gateway to the Contemporary International Practical Exhibition of Architecture in the lush green landscape of the Pearl Spring near Nanjing, China. It explores the shifting viewpoints, layers of space, and expanses of mist and water, which characterize the deep alternating spatial mysteries of early Chinese painting. This coming fall the Nanjing Sifang Art Museum will open to the public.

New Art Museum / SANAA

Andrea Giannotti — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Recently Pritzker laureate SANAA offers to architects, critics and customers very sharp architectures, outstanding and internationally recognized. Most of the times, the reason of this is the simplicity and clearness of the concept, and its clean translation into construction. The New Contemporary Art Museum in New York is a precious building with clear concept and strong impact.