Integrated Hvac and Lighting System Kimbell Art Museum Renzo Piano Plan

Richard Barnes View of the main (east) entrance.

Compassion the museum that finds itself in possession of a masterpiece. Not an artwork—those are great: works similar a Duccio and a Michelangelo, the Cézannes and the Picassos, the divine Bohdisattvas and the Ganeshas, all of which can be found in the galleries of the Kimbell Museum of Fine art in Fort Worth, Texas. No, the problem is when the masterwork is a piece of work of compages.

Between 1966 and 1972, the Kimbell got the right man at the correct fourth dimension at the right identify. Louis Kahn—despite his brief career and with due deference to Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, and Thomas Jefferson—is America'south greatest builder. Beyond any measure out of taste or way, Kahn'southward all-time buildings combine, in enduring and amazing means, methods and virtues that confound commonplace distinctions—betwixt ancient and modern, natural and artificial, practical and poetical—all with a palpable feeling for the dignities and liberties of their inhabitants. An unabridged metropolis of this particular perfection, lacking the stimulating misfits of everyday life, would curtain. Yet each of Kahn'due south few works is a glimpse into an unbroken globe.

Richard Barnes Aerial view of the campus from the northwest.

Kahn's Kimbell is iconic: Those rolling cycloid vaults, those porticoes and courts and pools, those hidden skylights and suspended reflectors, and all that silvery daylight they steal from the gods. Those divine proportions and overlaid rhythm of 20-foot vaults and 10-foot service bays, with all their built-in devices and services as integrated and resolved as watchworks, and the travertine and physical that join gloss and grit, intimacy and monumentality, in a way that is just right for a Texas treasure palace whose founding fortune was wrought from livestock feed and oil.

Inseparable from that architectural design, Kahn's landscape design (adult with George Patton and Kahn paramour Harriet Pattison, now well-known every bit the mother of My Architect filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn) incorporated century-onetime trees that had lined a street formerly on the site, mingling in ruddy oaks and elms and adjustment grids of crepe myrtles and yaupon hollies with the multilevel platforms and courts and pools that brought together building and plantings—all making, for this car-leap and desert-dusted city, a dappled garden. In a June 1969 letter of the alphabet to patron Kay Kimbell, Kahn described the villa-in-a-garden concept of the building, calling its west garden-facing façade and porticoes the "entrance of the trees."

The last project Kahn saw completed, that edifice and its grounds are as much an essential tape of a human being nature, and of a humanist mission, equally the Michelangelo artwork it shelters. And similar that painting it should be stewarded in such a way that another 500 years of humankind can fully experience its original effects. If the Kimbell Museum were an insurance visitor or a automobile launder, it would face the same ethical duty, but equally an institution explicitly concerned with the propagation of aesthetic experience, and with the long durations of conservation and curation, the assignment is closer to home.

Richard Barnes View of the main (west) entrance.

It'south not an easy thing, to have greatness thrust upon you. A niggling Kahn goes a long fashion. Familiarity breeds, if not contempt, then a certain situational blindness. Forty years come and get, and a museum'due south drove and mission grows. It finds itself in need of additional gallery space. And an education center. And a bigger auditorium. And even more parking. What and so? First, a fiasco. And then, Renzo Piano, Hon. FAIA. The fiasco was an aborted 1989 expansion plan, designed past Kahn role veteran Romaldo Giurgola, FAIA, that suggested extruding Kahn'south iconic vaults to the n and due south similar and then much toothpaste—a non-unsupportable proposal given that Kahn's early schemes for the original edifice had not dissimilar features, however one that drew an arts-pages firestorm, and was unceremoniously withdrawn.

Richard Barnes Roof item on the south canopy, with a view due east to the Kahn building beyond.

In 2007, without the usual competitions and consultations, the Kimbell appear a new addition to be designed by Piano. He had done well with modest Texas museums, similar Houston'due south 1986 Menil Collection and Dallas's 2003 Nasher Sculpture Centre—establishing, with his signature louvers and skylights, a reputation for knowing how to daylight a gallery, and for directing the busy traffic of high-end institutions. A formerly prodigious practice that is now just prolific, Piano's Building Workshop has produced many buildings of notable efficacy, applying architecturally scaled technology to the programmatic essentials and perfecting an aesthetic of credible systematicity. New York's Whitney Museum and the Los Angeles Canton Museum of Art, later their own failed additions, found in Pianoforte a kind of fixer and controversy-cooler—a signifier of proficient taste and seeming guarantor of critical approbation, if non unalloyed praise.

Reviews since the November opening of Pianoforte's addition have been dutiful, mostly of the "ii masters meet at the summit of their game" variety; or fifty-fifty more decorously, they have followed a narrative of "today's masterpiece joins yesterday'southward and shows admirable deference." But neither of those tales is especially truthful. Somewhere between commission and construction, the site of Piano'southward freestanding addition got moved from an unimpeachably deferential position across the street from the Kahn'south edifice's east entrance, upwards and over into the garden itself. Piano'due south 100,000-square-foot, $132 million building now goes head-to-head against Kahn's 120,000-square-foot original beyond less than 200 feet of parking-garage-capping backyard. Kahn'south "entrance of the copse" at present faces not erstwhile oaks and elms, but the blind concrete wall and caper overhanging canopy that are the main features of the new structure's forepart façade.

Richard Barnes Outside view of the east façade and entrance, from the northeast.

Building in Kahn's garden, next to his villa, one might incline towards two possibilities: A diaphanous architecture of steel and drinking glass that complements-by-dissimilarity with its substantial concrete antecedent, or a grassy berm that, like Piano's green roof for San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences or his Paul Klee Center in Bern, Switzerland, becomes part of the garden itself. Piano'southward new building does a bit of both, while fully committing to neither.

Richard Barnes Antechamber, view from the north.

A partially glazed pavilion in front houses a very big lobby (which presumably will be primarily an event space), and some smaller-than-expected temporary exhibition galleries (one sharing infinite with a generously scaled gift store) featuring 11-foot-tall reconfigurable partitions and clever air vents in the gaps betwixt the widely spaced floorboards. In that location'south a berm-like barrow to the back that houses a 300-seat auditorium along with instruction and support spaces and a depression-light gallery. Simply the barrow, much-incised with loading docks and calorie-free wells and parapets, isn't all that cached.

Richard Barnes South gallery, view from the southeast.

And the pavilion isn't all that glassy. Information technology features a familiar catalog of Piano details: Every bit at the Fine art Institute of Chicago, there are structural columns that sneak outside the enclosing walls, supporting a thin only deeply overhanging roof; and as at the Nasher, there'south an insistent striation of walls and beams (this time, 10 feet on center, running northward–south) that sets up the finer grain above of the glass roof and associated gadgets (this fourth dimension, operable louvers with solar panels over fritted drinking glass over cloth scrims). The beams are 104 feet long, 4 feet deep, and fabricated from laminated Douglas fir, although their bleached grayish color renders them—especially from that critical 200-human foot distance to the Kahn—virtually indistinguishable from the concrete walls beneath. On the building's south and northward façades, this results in a massive and deeply articulated elevation for what is, at 23-anxiety tall, a low-slung building—its miniature monumentality and rusticated modernism reminiscent of a Hugh Stubbins Jr., or a Harry Weese, or a Kevin Roche, FAIA.

Richard Barnes View, from the west, of the passage to main lobby of the Piano pavilion and to the Kahn building across.

To his own signature features, Piano appears to have added several direct references to Kahn'due south. The two buildings share a tripartite plan, with the meter of Pianoforte'south beams paralleling and equaling the length of Kahn'southward vaults, whose profile is distantly referenced past the very slight convex curve of Piano's skylights. A strip window between the base of operations of those Douglas fir beams and the superlative of the perimeter concrete wall recalls the like reveals between Kahn's vaults and end walls. Paired staircases down to the auditorium and the nether-lawn parking vaguely parallel the twinned staircases that famously slip visitors upward from the deliberately unpromising east entrance of Kahn's Kimbell, to the astonishing plenum of gallery and garden above. For some reason, nonetheless, one concrete side wall of both sets of Pianoforte's stairs, and a retaining wall elsewhere, are canted by about 10 degrees. A example could exist made that these quasi-Kahnisms pay tribute to their originals side by side door. But the reverse may besides be true: Past placing not-quite-duplicates nearby, Piano lessens the result, in memory and anticipation, of the originals—a kind of distant defacement.

Richard Barnes Double staircase leading to auditorium.

The "uncanny valley" is that famous zone of experience in which a re-create'southward approximation of an original is so close and yet so far, so that the distinctions betwixt the two get acutely visible, and causes the whole to be repulsive. It is into this valley that much of Piano's psuedo-Kahn falls, especially in the significant management of the many mechanical and structural elements—pipes, tubes, beams, frames, reveals, channels, panels, brackets, spacers, sealants—that in Kahn'due south building reliably converge into resolved assemblies far greater than the sum of their parts. In Piano's edifice, many of these aforementioned components complacently compound—clips on clips, tubes on tubes—simply by Kahn's standards they are more coincident than truly convergent: adding and adding, without ever quite adding up. In this, the 23rd museum produced by an admirably busy practise, the resulting quietude may be less the result of restraint than of a finite capacity for taking pains—suggesting less the humility with which Piano's edifice has been credited, than a kind of smarm.

Richard Barnes View into the auditorium from the due east.

Perhaps the closest analogy to what has happened at the Kimbell is Cabell Hall at the University of Virginia, with which, in 1899, Stanford White closed off the view from the famous Backyard to the afar mountains and Western Borderland at which Jefferson had deliberately directed information technology—turning a Founding Father's "architectural commandment" into a mere quadrangle. Kahn'south garden was far more modest, but at that place's a lesson in how White's Beaux-Arts bowdlerizing of Jefferson'due south Georgian classicism took much of the thrill and the enlightened strangeness out of its neighboring originals.

Richard Barnes Courtyard, with view to the glazed passage connecting the south and w galleries.

When asked at a November lecture in Fort Worth what he thought of his work at the Kimbell, Piano replied, "Nosotros need the trees to abound." He elaborated, wisely and touchingly, that even the greatest new buildings have time for their rough edges, flaws and features both, to be worn smooth by utilise, "to become role of the solar day-to-day life of the city. It needs a patina. … Compages relies on a long time, it is made real only in time, like forests are." Yaupon hollies are tolerant and hardy and evergreen. They grow fast. Shortly, they and other new plantings may restore something of the proportions and conversations Pattison and Kahn imagined between branches and arches: betwixt museum and garden and city. They may someday moderate the dire tuba-in-the-strings-section presence of the neighboring University of N Texas Health Scientific discipline Center that, absent big trees, looms over what's left of the garden.

But for now, those yaupons perform a different kind of miracle: Currently head-height when viewed from the sunlit forecourt at the heart of Kahn's Kimbell, the trees' delicate-yet-dense canopies blend seamlessly into the remaining garden landscape, and in a perspectival trick worthy of Duccio or Michelangelo, perfectly align with the elevation of the new building to the west—erasing information technology, as if it had never come to laissez passer, from view.

Richard Barnes Exterior view of the South gallery of the Piano pavilion, at night.

For more on the Renzo Pianoforte Pavilion at the Kimbell Art Museum, including critiques, videos, and photo galleries, click hither.

Project Credits

Project Renzo Piano Pavilion, Fort Worth, Texas
CustomerKimbell Fine art Museum
ArchitectRenzo Piano Building Workshop, Genoa, Italia—Mark Carroll (partner-in-charge); Onur Teke (associate-in-accuse); Shunji Ishida (partner); Daniel Hammerman, Shunta Ishida, Emily Moore, Alberto Morselli, Marco Orlandi, Daniele Piano, Sara Polotti, Danielle Reimers, Etien Santiago, Federico Spadini, Fausto Capellini (team); Francesco Terranova (models)
Architect of Record  Kendall/Heaton Associates, Houston—Laurence C. Burns Jr., FAIA, Nobuhiko Shoga, AIA, Daniel Dupuis, AIA, Saman Ahmadi, AIA, Michael Ta, Jing Gu, Jaime Alvarez, Assoc. AIA, Ai Kawashima
Projection Manager  Paratus Group
Structural Engineer  Guy Nordenson and Associates; Brockette, Davis, Drake (consultant to structure manager)
M/E/P Engineer  Arup
Civil Engineer  Huitt-Zollars
Mural  Michael Morgan Landscape Compages, Pond & Co.
Lighting  Arup Lighting
Acoustical  Harvey Marshall Berling Associates
Façade Consultant  Front
Construction Manager  The Beck Group
Size101,130 gross square feet
Price$135 million

Fabric and Sources
Acoustical Ceilings  Sadi Poliarchitettura (interruption filigree) sadi.it; Baswaphon (plaster) baswaphon.com
Air Devices  Halton halton.com; Titus titus-hvac.com
Art Hanging System  Takiya takiya.com
Auditorium Seating  Poltrona Frau world wide web.poltronafrau.com
Bridge Bearing ConnectionsMageba magebausa.com
Building Graphics  DCL
ChairsBernhardt bernhardt.com; Knoll knoll.com; Stylex stylexseating.com
Compact ShelvingSpacesaver spacesaver.com
Concrete  Capform capforminc.com; Dottor Group dottorgroup.it
Curtainwall System and Skylights  Seele seele.com
Custom Steel Components  Tripyramid tripyramid.com
Dimming Organisation  Philips Strand Lighting strandlighting.com
Door Hardware  Blumcraft crl-arch.com; Sargent sargentlock.com; Von Duprin allegion.com
Elevators/Escalators  C. Lindsey Designs clindseydesigns.com; EMR Elevator emrelevatortx.net
FaucetsToto totousa.com; Vola vola.com
Fire Door  Won-Door wondoor.com
Floor Boxes  FSR fsrinc.com; Legrand legrand.us
Gallery ScrimDesigntex designtex.com
Glulam BeamsStructurlam structurlam.com
Grating  Ohio Gratings ohiogratings.com; Hendrick Architectural Products hendrickarchproducts.com
Green Roof  Hydrotech hydrotechusa.com
Interior Glass  DGB Drinking glass dgbglass.com
Insulation  Dow Chemical building.dow.com; Owens Corning owenscorning.com; Roxul roxul.com
Lighting  Bega (exterior) bega-us.com; iGuzzini (exterior, interior ambient) iguzzini-na.com; Io Lighting (interior ambient) cooperindustries.com; Lighting Services (gallery track) lightingservicesinc.com
Mechanical Louvers  Airolite airolite.com
Metal PanelsArmetco Systems armetco.com
MillworkBrochsteins brochsteins.com
Moveable PartitionsGoppion goppion.com
Office FurnitureGeiger geigerintl.com
Operable Partitions Modernfold www.modernfold.com
Ornamental MetalsMetalrite metalrite.com
PhotovoltaicsGIG Holding gig.at
Precast Treads and WheelstopsDallas Cast Stone dallasstone.com
Roof HatchBilco bilco.com
Stainless Steel DoorsUBS ubsdoors.com
Structural Thermal BreakSchoeck schoeck.com
TablesDavis davisfurniture.com; Herman Miller hermanmiller.com; Knoll knoll.com; Riva 1920 riva1920.com
Toilet AccessoriesBobrick bobrick.com
Toilet PartitionsGlobal Partitions globalpartitions.com
UpholsteryKnoll knoll.com
WaterproofingW.R. Grace graceconstruction.com
Woods FlooringWoodwright woodwright.cyberspace

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Source: https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/buildings/the-renzo-piano-pavilion-at-the-kimbell-art-museum-deferential-or-deflating_o