N.Y. museum’s bare extension houses isotropic cube gallery
by arslan_ahmed | October 17, 2023 2:59 pm
Magazzino Italian Art’s Robert Olnick Pavilion in Cold Spring, New York, features a minimalist industrial design that enhances its postwar and contemporary Italian art exhibits. A notable space in the building is Gallery 2—the isotropic room—designed as a perfect cube with corner square windows.
The work of renowned Spanish architects, Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo, the Robert Olnick Pavilion is the second building on the museum’s campus. Its layout highlights industrial materials, such as concrete, to facilitate a conceptually strong and aesthetically neutral environment to complement the art exhibits.
The building will provide an additional 1,208 m2 (13,000 sf) of exhibition space, a multipurpose room with auditorium capabilities, a combined cafe and store on the mezzanine, and a gallery devoted to Italian decorative arts, Murano glass, ceramics, and jewelry.
This expansion marks a milestone for Magazzino, allowing the museum to host more temporary exhibitions, expand educational initiatives for younger visitors, and continue to offer a wide range of indoor and outdoor events across both spaces on the Cold Spring campus.
The dynamic approach to the design of Gallery 2, the isotropic room, facilitates a constantly evolving stream of light, capturing time like a sundial as the windows cast shadows at rotating angles.
“We built the Robert Olnick Pavilion like a poem: a white cube traversed by light. The main space will embody the beauty of the artwork it exhibits, and with an isotropic design that carves an opening into every corner, each detail will be touched by magnificent sunlight. Not unlike the excitement of birth, it is with great anticipation that we deliver this second building to the museum,” says Baeza.
“It’s been a dream to collaborate with Alberto Campo Baeza on the Robert Olnick Pavilion. It feels as though we’re closing a cycle that started 20 years ago, when Alberto first recruited me to participate in the development of the Olnick Spanu House and introduced me to Nancy and Giorgio. What an amazing experience to have contributed to the birth of such a singular institution and to design and construct such iconic buildings,” says Quismondo.
Source URL: https://www.constructionspecifier.com/n-y-museums-bare-extension-houses-isotropic-cube-gallery/