After seeing a 200% increase in budget, number of students served, and annual visitors in recent years, the Aspen Art Museum deserved a makeover. After 18 months of planning and construction, the museum will finally open its new Shigeru Ban-designed facility to the public on August 9.
The Japanese architect and 2014 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner is known for using lightweight materials, true to the traditional construction requirements in his earthquake-prone homeland. Ban also has a knack for elevating disaster relief with style and simplicity. The new Aspen Art Museum is no outcast in his portfolio of simple, crisp structures.
Located in the heart of downtown Aspen, with a 360-view of the mountainous landscape, the Aspen Art Museum is a cube structure sheathed on two sides with a distinctive woven-wood screen, Architecture Lab reports.
Not only does the museum now have triple the amount of exhibition space at 17,500 sf, the rooftop also has a sculpture garden that makes use of the beautiful view of the Rockies.
Related Stories
| May 31, 2012
2011 Reconstruction Awards Profile: Ka Makani Community Center
An abandoned historic structure gains a new life as the focal point of a legendary military district in Hawaii.
| May 31, 2012
5 military construction trends
Defense spending may be down somewhat, but there’s still plenty of project dollars out there if you know where to look.
| May 31, 2012
New School’s University Center in NYC topped out
16-story will provide new focal point for campus.
| May 31, 2012
Day & Zimmermann taps Jobe for ECM VP
Ken Jobe, a senior executive with 30+ years of industry-related experience, joins Day & Zimmermann to expand footprint in the process & industrial markets.
| May 31, 2012
Perkins+Will-designed engineering building at University of Buffalo opens
Clad in glass and copper-colored panels, the three-story building thrusts outward from the core of the campus to establish a new identity for the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the campus at large.
| May 30, 2012
Construction milestone reached for $1B expansion of San Diego International Airport
Components of the $9-million structural concrete construction phase included a 700-foot-long, below-grade baggage-handling tunnel; metal decks covered in poured-in-place concrete; slab-on-grade for the new terminal; and 10 exterior architectural columns––each 56-feet tall and erected at a 14-degree angle.
| May 30, 2012
Pringle Brandon in discussions to join forces with Perkins+Will
The London offices would be known as Pringle Brandon Perkins+Will.
| May 30, 2012
Boral Bricks announces winners of “Live.Work.Learn” student architecture contest
Eun Grace Ko, a student at the Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, named winner of annual contest.
| May 30, 2012
Hill International to manage construction of Al Risafa Stadium in Iraq
The three-year contract has an estimated value to Hill of approximately $3.3 million.
