Erica Chen Arch1201 Design Studio: Art Gallery-Week 2

Precedent Studies:
Steven Holl, Nelson Atkins Museum Of Art, Kansas City

'By subtly interweaving his building with the museum's historic fabric and the surrounding landscape, he has produced a work of haunting power. For the art world, the addition, known as the Bloch Building, should reaffirm that art and architecture can happily coexist. (...) He has created a building that sensitizes visitors to the world around them. It's an approach that should be studied by anyone who sets out to design a museum from this point forward. '
-Nicolai Ouroussoff, New York Times, June 6, 2007

But it is on the inside that Holl shows his chops, using the most elusive and difficult materials: space and light. He has designed shape-shifting spaces that flow, like an unfolding narrative, down ramps and graceful steps, with a canted wall here, a curve in the high ceiling there, as a visitor moves through the galleries for contemporary art, African art and photography. Light spills in at unexpected moments, from above or from big panes of glass overlooking the garden.'

-Catherine Macuigan, News Week

Effective lanscaping connects inside and outside.

Interior space carried through to exterior courtyard.

A "Breathing" T-motif used throughout design, for the infiltration of light.

Unexpected shafts of light encountered when weaving through gallery spaces, Art is synthesised with Architecture. Gallery Experience is unique to the individual.

Diffuse lighting created by translucent panels on walls.

Renzo Piano,
LMCA, Broad Museum of Contemporary Art, California

"If you are designing a museum you offer contemplation. It is not enough for the light to be perfect. You also need calm, serenity and even a voluptuous quality linked to contemplation of the work of art. Achieving such a result at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art depends on integrating the new museum into its broader context. That is the purpose of a master plan.-Renzo Piano