Displaying items by tag: reed hilderbrand

“I started to cry a bit when I saw the finished result for the first time this morning,” said architect Annabelle Selldorf at the June 27 press preview of the newly expanded Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Michael Conforti, director of the Institute, also teared up as he addressed the crowd gathered to celebrate the reopening after 10 years and $145 million of time and funds were invested into reconstruction. Visitors might have similarly emotional reactions to the results, including Pritzker-winner Tadao Ando’s multipurpose visitor center, which prioritizes circulation and the views of lush hills behind the Clark; landscape architecture firm Reed Hilderbrand’s stepped pools, which create a peaceful setting primed for meditation; and Selldorf’s redesign of the main museum building’s interior, which glorifies the Clark’s collection.

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA will unveil its updated, 140-acre campus on July 4, 2014. The museum’s decade-long expansion plan is the most significant transformation the institution has undergone since opening in 1955.

The renovations were spearheaded by three different architects -- Japan’s Tadao Ando Architects designed the new, 44,000-square-foot Visitor Center; New York’s Selldorf Architects transformed the original Museum Building as well as the Manton Research Center; and Massachusetts-based firm, Reed Hilderband, updated the Clark’s landscape and added a dramatic, one-acre reflecting pool. The renovation added over 16,000-square-feet of gallery space to the museum, allowing the Clark to exhibit more of its remarkable collection, which includes Old Master paintings, Impressionist masterpieces, and fine British and American silver.

When the Clark reopens this summer, the museum will present four inaugural exhibitions and the reinstallation of its collections. The exhibitions include ‘Make It New: Abstract Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, 1950–1975,’ ‘Cast for Eternity: Ancient Ritual Bronzes from the Shanghai Museum,’ ‘Raw Color: The Circles of David Smith,’ and ‘Photography and Discovery.’

Earlier this month the Parrish Art Museum opened its new 34,400 square-foot building in Water Mill, NY to the public. Founded in 1898 by New York lawyer, Samuel Longstreth Parrish, to house his growing art collection, the museum had been a staple in Southampton, NY before moving to its new location that boasts seven sky-lit galleries and three times the exhibition space than that of the museum’s former home.

Now that the $26.2 million move is complete, the result of years of painstaking fund-raising, the Parrish hopes to become the area’s artistic epicenter. Designed by the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & Meuron in collaboration with the landscape architecture firm Reed Hilderbrand, the new Parrish building sits on 14 acres of land right off of the Montauk Highway. The building is meant to blend into the landscape and consists of connected, stretching barn-like structures that sit under a white corrugated metal roof. Large sections of glass allow the line between the natural and artificial worlds to blend.

An American art museum with about 2,600 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper in its collection, the Parrish pays extra attention to the art of the East End of Long Island. The former Southampton location was simply too small to exhibit many of the exemplary works from the museum’s permanent collection that spans from the 19^th century to the present. Now, American Impressionist William Merritt Chase and the realist Fairfield Porter each have their own permanent galleries and there are three galleries just for temporary exhibitions.

Inaugurating the space is Malcolm Morley: Painting, Paper, Process, an exhibition devoted to the English-born artist known for exploring paper’s many artistic possibilities including watercolors, scale models, and freestanding sculptures. Approximately 50 works from the 1980s to present will be on view through January 13, 2013.

The Parrish’s new building also includes offices, a café, an expanded lobby, and a theater where film screenings, lectures, and performances will be held.