From expansion projects to new builds, faculty and students at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design are helping museums deepen connections to their site and community.
2 min. read
For professional architects as well as students, museums provide a unique design challenge. Museums need functional, accessible spaces to display objects and host public programs. Donors and executives often look to distinguish their institutions through design, offering architects a chance to bring all their skills and creativity to bear on a project.
Weitzman’s Ferda Kolatan (seated far right) in his MSD-AAD studio.
(Image: Dylan Li)
“Architecture’s role is to fulfill the needs of the clients by shaping the gallery spaces in the way that will work best for the institution,” says Daniel Markiewicz, an associate professor of practice in architecture and coordinator of the first-year MArch studio at Weitzman. “But it’s also to advise ways of opening up further and enhancing the welcoming aspect for these kinds of institutions.”
Museums around the world are increasingly known for their architecture as much as for their collections or programs. As museums and other cultural institutions strive to become more inviting and accessible to their communities, architects are helping them find the way.
“The extraordinary thing about museums is they are one of the few architectural programs that have the art of space and the art of art at the soul of the ambitions,” says Marion Weiss, Graham Professor of Practice in Architecture and co-founder of the firm WEISS/MANFREDI. “Most buildings need to multitask beyond the edges of sensibility. Today museums need to transcend their traditional bounded identities to become more welcoming destinations for a broader public. Both art and natural history museums have the authority to interpret those rules of invitation and access in ways that are seen through the lens of art and science. That’s unique. It means that you have a greater chance to have a client at the other end who’s embracing the kind of ambitions that we hold near to our heart as ambitions of their own.”
Most museum projects today involve adding to or reimagining existing spaces, rather than building something from scratch. It’s a practice that has fascinated associate professor of architecture Ferda Kolatan throughout his career. Kolatan, an architect who leads New York-Based SU11, has led a series of graduate architecture studios in recent years in partnership with the GAD Foundation, an Istanbul-based group that coordinates student exchange programs in architecture and urbanism. While speculative in nature, the projects ask students to engage with local culture and stakeholders.
In Kolatan’s studio, students begin their work by focusing on one ancient wall on the site they’re working on, studying its design, qualities, condition, and the size of its stones, before moving onto the broader site. In Markiewicz’s studio, students similarly start narrow, studying an individual chair designed by an architect and using it to inform their designs for an exhibition room to display that chair. They then meet with leaders at the ICA, learn about the logistics and needs of the space, and finish the semester by designing a vertical addition for the museum. It’s an exercise that both encourages creativity and challenges it with real-world limitations.
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