McNay Details Innovative Design for the Jane and Arthur Stieren Center for Exhibitions
By Joshua Zumbrun
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 by Forbes
"Prior to the selection process, the architectural committee had certain desires in mind. Foremost among them were a highly flexible exhibition space with the presence of natural light, and a building that would not overwhelm the original museum home," explains William J. Chiego, Director of the McNay. "Jean-Paul's design was unanimously accepted because it allows for larger, more flexible space for exhibitions of greater size and variety while maintaining the museum's intimate and unique setting."
An Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA) and 2003 winner for the Best New Building in Chicago for his innovate design of the Accor Sofitel Chicago Water Tower, Viguier is fascinated by engineering and believes in the subtle blend of landscape architecture and site development. "Paul Valéry wrote that the soul needs beauty, the body what is useful or comfortable, and society needs what is durable. For me, those are the three aspects of architecture and they cannot be separated," Viguier explains.
“The McNay Art Museum is one of the nation’s most distinctive art museums,” remarks Tom Frost, Capital Campaign Chair and Chairman of the McNay Board of Trustees. “Jean-Paul Viguier has demonstrated his respect and value for proper conservation of the museum’s architecture and landscape.
UNPARALLED ARCHITECTURE
Jane and Arthur Stieren Center for Exhibitions
The new Jane and Arthur Stieren Center for Exhibitions comprises approximately 45,000 gross square feet of space, adjoined to the museum at the current entrance to the Leeper Auditorium, extending to the east. Highlighting the McNay's naturally sloping site, architect Jean-Paul Viguier has designed a two-storey addition that defers to the existing museum not only through its low profile, but also by its choice of materials, including a soft gray-green stone and bronze-colored metal that give warmth to the structure and contrast with the brightness of the original building.
The Stieren Center for Exhibitions nearly doubles the total museum space by allowing the presentation of larger and more varied shows, while freeing up our existing galleries to show the McNay's permanent collection year round.
GROUND FLOOR
AT&T Lobby
The AT&T Lobby conveys a bright and welcoming ambiance for all who visit. Filled with natural light, the 1,800-squarefoot lobby contains a greeters desk featuring touch-screen informational kiosks, interactive computer displays, and two plasma screens indicating the current and upcoming museum programs and events. As the primary entrance for special exhibitions, this is the connecting space between the existing museum and the new Stieren Center for Exhibitions. Highlighted by glass and bronze architectural elements with gray-green stone, the AT&T Lobby sets the tone for the visitors' experience by helping convey the McNay's deep commitment to openness and greater access to the museum's treasures.
A coat room, a new museum store, and a fully accessible restroom open off the lobby.
Ewing Halsell Foundation Reception Gallery
This 1,100-square-foot Ewing Halsell Foundation Reception Gallery, between the AT&T Lobby and the Tobin Exhibition Galleries, is the primary site for openings and the assembly for visitors, including student and adult groups. It directly adjoins the new McNay Museum Store.
A wide staircase and an elevator connect the reception gallery to the sculpture gallery that fronts the Stieren Center for Exhibitions. Visitors have a view from the reception gallery to the sculpture gardens outdoors. As with the Tobin Exhibition Galleries, the floors are of red brown hardwood of grey-green stone. The glass ceiling allows for controlled natural light. The reception gallery is equipped with sound system capability for exhibition openings and other special events, including donor receptions and dinners.
Tobin Exhibition Galleries
Occupying an impressive 7,500-square-feet, the Tobin Exhibition Galleries comprise the main area of the expansion. Measuring 192 x 44 square-feet, the space has the capacity to house larger renowned exhibitions that currently travel to Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and outside Texas. This state-of-the art facility also enables the museum to install shows of varying sizes and themes with great flexibility.
The most distinctive feature of the exhibition galleries is a multi-layered roof and ceiling system with translucent glazing. Pioneered specifically for the McNay, this innovative design consists of exterior fixed louvers that eliminate all direct sunlight onto the shed roof below. Within the attic cavity below the sheds, a two-part system of motorized shades allows the museum to diminish the sunlight to a lower level, while a total blackout shade allows the museum to diminish sunlight. The ceramic fritted/acid etched glass ceiling panels further diffuse the light and create a floating ephemeral effect at the ceiling plane. Artificial lighting compliments the natural light.
Two portals provide views of the outdoors from the exhibition galleries, continuing the dialogue between the indoors and outdoors that is characteristic of the McNay and makes the viewing of art such a pleasant experience.
Sculpture Gallery
The sculpture gallery creates a powerful first impression for visitors to the expanded museum. Nearly 200 feet in length, its façade is a glass curtain wall facing south and overlooking the new sculpture gardens. Just as the octagonal entrance tower of the McNay home commands attention upon approach, so too the sculpture gallery dominates the approach to the Stieren Center for Exhibitions.
The glass curtain wall is shaded by a deep cantilevered roof overhang, augmented by light-filtering shades. The same natural materials selected for the exhibition galleries were chosen for the sculpture gallery, with some variations of their use. The gray-green stone is carried from the floor into the walls, creating a seamless flow that harmonies with the outdoor landscape. A cantilevered roof overhang shades the glass curtain wall running the length of the entire façade. An interior thermo veil shade system installed in a overhanging soffit filters the strong South Texas light.
The sculpture gallery houses a variety of 20th-century and contemporary sculptures from the McNay's own collection, including works by Barbara Hepworth, Jean Arp, Richard Stankiewicz, and Leonardo Drew. From inside the sculpture gallery, visitors have views of the expansive views of the new sculpture gardens. The glass curtain wall also allows nighttime visitors to experience the gallery's stunning space from the outside. In the evenings, the new Stieren Center for Exhibitions will glow like a lantern in the McNay landscape.
McNay Museum Store
Directly adjoining the Ewing Halsell Foundation Reception Gallery is the new, expanded 1,000-square-foot McNay Museum Store. The Museum Store allows a wider range of museum-related merchandise including books and catalogues, note cards, prints, and posters. It also permits a greater selection of gift items, including decorative arts, jewelry and other wearables, music CDs, and special products for children.
GARDEN LEVEL
Learning Centers I and II
"Engaging and interactive" describe the McNay's two new learning centers. Comprised of approximately 1,200-squarefeet, the learning centers can be divided in half to serve separate educational programs or combined for one large program. Each area is equipped with state-of-the-art technology for video or digital image presentations on current exhibitions and the permanent collection. One of the learning centers features computers for both group and individual interactive learning sessions on the collection, artists, or exhibitions; on-line access to the internet will be available during group sessions. Durable rubber tile flooring, tackable walls, and supply storage allow for art technique demonstrations, family and teacher workshops, and didactic exhibitions of photographic enlargements, maps, or text panels. Also the site of storytelling and brief performances, the learning centers enhance understanding and enjoyment of art in the museum for young children, teens, and adults alike.
Garden Galleries
The galleries on the garden level measure 3,500-square-feet following the same architectural footprint as the sculpture gallery above them. They consist of four distinct gallery spaces: the Garden Lobby, the Garden Decorative Arts Gallery, the Garden Paperworks Gallery, and the Garden Sculpture Gallery (descriptions of each space to follow). The garden galleries sit both at and below ground level and maintain the connection to the outdoors. Visitors can view the sculpture gardens through south-facing glass walls in two of the four gallery spaces.
Garden Lobby
Approximately 850-square-feet, this gallery serves as the lobby for the learning centers and the Chiego Lecture Hall, the destination for McNay visitors to enjoy lectures and film presentations. Protected from natural light, this area is ideal for exhibiting works of art on paper, including prints, drawings, posters, and theatre designs.
Garden Decorative Arts Gallery
Approximately 850-square-feet, this gallery provides space for showing small-scale sculpture, ceramics, decorative arts, and maquettes in custom designed cases. The cases face one of the most striking architectural features of the Stieren Center for Exhibitions-a grand staircase that links the garden galleries to the ground level sculpture gallery. Encased in a decorative, bronze-toned screen designed by Jean-Paul Viguier, the staircase is a contemporary version of the McNay's signature wrought iron grilles and gates in the original house.
Garden Paperworks Gallery
Approximately 850-square-feet in size, this enclosed gallery is protected from natural light and ideal for showing works of on paper, including watercolors, prints, drawings, and photography. Drawn from the museum's superb collection as well as loans from other sources, exhibitions and temporary installations complement major exhibitions on view in the Tobin Exhibition Galleries.
Garden Sculpture Gallery
Approximately 850-square-feet, this is the most brightly lit of the garden galleries with the full effect of the glass curtain wall facing the outdoor sculpture gardens. The space is ideal for the exhibition of small and medium sculpture of the modern and contemporary eras.
The Elizabeth Lee and William J. Chiego Lecture Hall
The new 226 seat Elizabeth Lee and William J. Chiego Lecture Hall provides sloped and staggered seating for lectures an film presentations is equipped with the latest visual and audio capability. Suitable for small theatrical presentations, readings, and other live performances, the new hall features walls of tinted pear wood panels for optimum acoustics. The theatre seats are upholstered in green and beige Arne Jacobsen fabric with a patterned beige chenille carpet on the floor. The Elizabeth Lee and William J. Chiego Lecture Hall was given in 2006 as a tribute to the Chiegos by the Jane and Arthur Stieren Foundation, Jane Stieren Lacy, Trustee.
OUTDOOR AREAS
Sculpture Gardens
The new outdoor sculpture gardens-the first in South Texas-are divided into three separate outdoor galleries by walls that extend the architecture of the Stieren Center for Exhibitions into the landscape. The walls, faced with the gray-green stone of the building, create a sense of intimacy within the landscape and enhance the presentation of human scale works. Allowing free circulation of visitors and a variety of viewpoints, the walls have breaks at varied intervals.
The sculpture gardens permit both the permanent display of sculpture from the McNay's own collection and the presentation of outdoor sculpture exhibitions. As one of the most prominent features of the Stieren Center, the sculpture gardens enhance the Center's total design for the public to enjoy as they approach the entrance.
Brown Foundation Sculpture Terrace
The Brown Foundation Sculpture Terrace is prominently located at the west end of the sculpture gardens, adjoining the AT&T Lobby entrance and accessible from the sculpture gallery. The terrace will have views of the sculpture gardens on one side and the path to the original McNay home, the historic core of the museum and its surrounding lawns on the other.
The Brown Foundation Sculpture Terrace is not only a site for sculpture but also a gathering place for social events and activities, with connection via the sculpture gallery and the Ewing Halsell Foundation Reception Gallery. The terrace can be used for range of celections including exhibition openings and family days.
The Children's Landing
As visitors approach the AT&T Lobby, they are sheltered by a wide brise soleil or sunscreen followed by a glass roof with covering sunscreen that provides a protected, all-weather gathering space for school and adult groups, as well as individuals arriving at the museum.
Sculpture and Entry Promenades
Running east-west and north-south through the sculpture gardens are the sculpture and entry promenades. These meandering pathways allow circulation through the sculpture gardens for viewing and contemplation of the outdoor sculpture collection, the Stieren Center, and the surrounding grounds.
Sculpture Promenade (East-West)
Adjacent to the entry promenade and running east-west is the sculpture promenade. Visitors see this area as they walk toward the entry promenade and choose this pathway for a closer look at the outdoor sculptures. This sculpture promenade also offers views of the existing McNay home, and the unique architecture of the Stieren Center for Exhibitions.
Carol and Charles E. Foster Sculpture Promenade (North-South)
The Carol and Charles E. Foster Sculpture Promenade is the north-south walkway extending from the new museum parking area and drop-off point for cars and buses, up to AT&T Lobby. Designed as a wide, graduated path with intermittent stairs adjoined by a gently sloping ramp for visitors with mobility challenges, it leads to the visitors landing with protection from the sun and inclement weather as they approach the AT&T Lobby.
DIGITAL IMAGES
Images are available upon request. Please contact Laura Kunz, TateAustinHahn for the McNay, at 512.344.2038 or lkunz@tateaustinhahn.com.
ABOUT THE MCNAY
Built by educator Marion Koogler McNay in the 1920s, the Spanish Colonial Revival-style home opened as the first museum of modern art in 1954. Mrs. McNay believed that the experience of great art should be available to everyone. Today more than 100,000 visitors enjoy works of art by 20th-century masters including Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
A vital partner in arts education, the McNay annually serves as many as 45,000 adults, teachers, students, and families with a variety of arts education programs and educational resources, including a fine arts reference library and interpretive information about the art in the museum's collection and exhibitions.
