Buildings
Parrish Art Museum Unveils New Concept
(archrecord.construction.com - 08/28/2006)
By David
Sokol
Well-heeled Hamptonites attending the
Parrish Art Museum’s annual fundraiser in July got first
glimpse at renderings and model of the art institution’s
new home. Herzog & de Meuron founder Pierre de Meuron
was on hand to unveil the design concept for a new 64,000-square-foot
museum that is scheduled to open in 2009.
The design, a series of smaller built forms, was inspired
by visits to artists’ studios located in Long Island’s
East End, the region that is rapidly being pushed out by the
swanky weekend destinations of the Hamptons’ elite. The
museum’s indigenous landscape of meadow grass, scrub
woodland, and coastal dunes reinforce the architects’
intent that it appear as small compound of studios linked
together.
Four main galleries are likely to contain clusters of work
by major artists like Willem de Kooning and Fairfield Porter,
who are well represented in the Parrish inventory, and also
will provide orientation points within the network of smaller
structures. North-facing monitors and generous windows will
connect visitors to the native habitat outdoors, and to the
daylight that attracted artists to the East End originally.
The event raised $900,000 for the Parrish. Altruists were
dutifully thanked: the evening’s goodie bags included
sculptural chocolates representing the different volumes of
Herzog & de Meuron’s proposed design.
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