Space is at a premium when it comes to museums. Only the best of the best of a museum’s collection gets the prime real estate that is displayed to the public. In fact, it is estimated that only 2% to 4% of a museum’s collection is actually shown to guests.
As museums try to show more of their collections to visitors, many contemporary designs are beginning to incorporate the exterior of the building as a gallery. Now, you aren’t going to see the Louvre plastering the Mona Lisa onto the side of the building like a wanted poster anytime soon, but museums are starting to realize art installations specifically designed for the exterior of a building can prove to be quite valuable.
Buildings have made use of their exterior walls as a display in the past. Chicago’s Tribune Tower is covered with over 150 historically significant artifacts from around the world that are built into the structure’s limestone wall.
Col. Robert McCormick brought back the first piece from a church that was shelled in Belgium during World War I. Upon returning to Chicago, he then told his correspondents around the world to obtain pieces of famous buildings and bring them back.
Embedded in Tribune Tower’s limestone walls are pieces of the Greek Parthenon, the Roman Colosseum, London’s Houses of Parliament, and dozens more, all permanently on display for passersby.
One of the artifacts embedded in Tribune Tower's limestone exterior. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain.
While these artifacts aren’t necessarily art installations, the exterior walls have still been transformed into a display.
The Whitney Museum of American Art, however, took this idea one step further by actually designing the building with specific solutions to best utilize exterior wall space as a gallery.
As a new white paper, Exterior as Gallery, from the New York-based Cooper Robertson outlines, the new Whitney Museum of American has facades that face Manhattan’s popular High Line park and the Hudson River, making them ideal viewing galleries.
Works of art can be anchored to the building’s terraces or suspended from the facades. A combination of vertical anchor points on the façade and a grid of horizontal points on the terraces allows for the installation of two- and three-dimensional artwork that can be viewed from multiple angles and levels. In total, there are four art terraces connected by an exterior stair leading from one to the other.
For displaying pieces from the façade, the design team used a standard system of bolts that can be tethered to or removed and replaced with eye hooks or other hardware to enable the museum to attach a screen, stretch a canvas, or suspend a super-scale object from the side of the building, according to the white paper. The façade was also reinforced to accommodate the addition of a 600-pound pull load.
The terraces required a different solution in order to display art and to keep it secured, especially in instances of high winds. A cylinder is bolted to a base plate that is then fastened to the structure below. Each cylinder is filled with foamed-in-place insulation. These cylindrical anchors align with the beams of the building’s rigorous structural grid in order not to exceed weight limitations. The terraces also have technology consolidation points for displays that require electricity and other AV needs.
If these additions prove successful, odds are, the Whitney Museum of American Art won’t be the last museum to apply these strategies.
Read the entire Cooper Robertson Exterior as Gallery white paper, here.
Related Stories
Museums | Mar 24, 2016
Aquarium of the Pacific unveils whale of a project
Designed by EHDD, the 18,000-sf, whale-shaped Pacific Visions will have gathering spots, galleries, and a theater with a large, curved screen.
Museums | Mar 3, 2016
How museums engage visitors in a digital age
Digital technologies are opening up new dimensions of the museum experience and turning passive audiences into active content generators, as Gensler's Marina Bianchi examines.
Museums | Feb 12, 2016
Construction begins on Foster + Partners’ Norton Museum of Art expansion project
The Florida museum is adding gallery space, an auditorium, great hall, and a 20,000-sf garden.
Architects | Feb 11, 2016
Stantec agrees to acquire VOA Associates
This deal reflects an industry where consolidation is a strategic necessity for more firms.
Museums | Feb 5, 2016
Diller Scofidio + Renfro transforms old Art Deco building into a museum at UC Berkeley
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, which opened in late January, contains a theater, lab, and galleries. It was once a printing plant.
Museums | Jan 22, 2016
Canadian Canoe Museum selects Heneghan Peng Architects’ design for new location
The single-story structure is designed for sustainability as well as function.
Architects | Jan 15, 2016
Best in Architecture: 18 projects named AIA Institute Honor Award winners
Morphosis' Perot Museum and Studio Gang's WMS Boathouse are among the projects to win AIA's highest honor for architecture.
| Jan 14, 2016
How to succeed with EIFS: exterior insulation and finish systems
This AIA CES Discovery course discusses the six elements of an EIFS wall assembly; common EIFS failures and how to prevent them; and EIFS and sustainability.
Museums | Dec 18, 2015
Santiago Calatrava-designed museum with skeletal roof opens in Rio
The Museu do Amanhã addresses the future of the planet and has an inventive, futuristic design itself.
Museums | Dec 16, 2015
Gluckman Tang-designed museums could stimulate economy in North Adams, Mass.
The goal is to create a “cultural corridor” between North Adams and Williamstown, Mass.