North Carolina Museum of Art : By Thomas Phifer and Partners ~ HouseVariety

Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
Thomas Phifer and Partners
Post By:Kitticoon Poopong

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances--The sculptures in the Rodin Garden are set among gravel, water, and bamboo plants. The garden extends the western end of the building spine, which features smaller works by the artist, into the landscape.

Shedding Light: Thomas Phifer and Partners turns a simple structure into a stunning expansion of the North Carolina Museum of Art.
Tom Phifer said that he wants his new building for the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA), in Raleigh, to disappear into the landscape. By saying so, he is daring you to take a closer look, knowing full well that his first museum, like the art that hangs on its walls, will stand up to the scrutiny.

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances--The shaped earth forms a blanket around NCMA's new one-story building. Surrounding it are both trees and treelike sculptures by artists Ursula von Rydingsvard and Roxy Paine.

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances

From a distance, it looks hardly more than a warehouse, an impression that did not sit well with some locals, who for endless months during construction could see only a squat concrete box. Certainly they would have preferred the bold civic gesture, a splashy concoction to bring attention to the Raleigh community. But the focus here is on the art, and the visitor’s interaction with it. So while the museum’s strong permanent collection, which occupies all the galleries, is not teeming with masterpieces like those of some larger institutions, under the soft light of day, it shines.

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances

Three decisive elements transform what might easily have passed for an ordinary shed into this stunning house for art. Massive aluminum panels, arranged like pleats, clad the precast-concrete wall panels of the steel frame structure. A series of courtyards and reflecting pools cuts into each face of its rectangular form. Topping everything is a spectacular array of coffered skylights that combines with the glazed courtyard openings to bathe the galleries in controlled natural light and bring the outside emphatically in.

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances

And since the one-story structure has no place for a soaring atrium or grand staircase, de rigueur in museum buildings both Classical and Modern, Phifer’s singular gesture is to demarcate the main entry with a steel-and-glass canopy beside an allée of American elms. Just past the threshold, the visitor is immediately confronted with art, the reception desk slightly askew. While this entry shares an outdoor plaza with NCMA’s existing Edward Durell Stone building, now home to temporary exhibitions and offices, visitors can access the new building, which is free to the public, from its courtyards as well. “There is a brilliant new thinking about buildings for art,” says NCMA director Lawrence Wheeler. “Ours reflects these democratic values.” (Security cameras monitor the building and grounds.)

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances--Phifer found inspiration for the entry canopy in the glass and mirror structures of Dan Graham. Its highly reflective glass is a dazzling counterpoint to the anodized aluminum cladding.

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances

It’s a way of thinking that leaves visitors to experience the art, both inside and scattered throughout the surrounding landscape (NCMA’s museum park, the largest in the country, includes a popular outdoor amphitheater by Smith-Miller + Hawkinson and artist Barbara Kruger) on their own terms.

Happily, the exhibition galleries, laid out over 65,000 square feet according to a 26-foot module, do not follow a tightly controlled path of strict chronological or thematic sequences. The fairly open floor plan allows visitors to weave in and out of them, passing by the figurative sculptural works that delineate the building’s spine. Curators take advantage of this freedom to experiment with how they display the art. Devorah Sperber’s After the Mona Lisa 2, a 2005 work that recreates da Vinci’s famous portrait with 5,184 hanging spools of thread, is an unexpected delight beside works from the Italian Renaissance. In another gallery, Josef Albers’s colorful, mid-20th-century studies for Homage to the Square are juxtaposed with American Impressionist Frederick Carl Frieseke’s The Garden Parasol from 1910.

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances--White oak foors and white walls characterize all of the exhibition galleries. Coffered skylights top the 16-foot-tall spaces, giving a rhythmic quality to the ceiling. The light levels from the MR16 track lights inserted between the 6 1/2-foot-wide coffers are adjusted according to the amount of daylight coming in from the oculi. The 15-inch-thick fixed walls conceal mechanical ducts.

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances

Of course, everything looks good beneath the ceiling’s 360 oculi, the building’s only sculptural element and the source of the glorious daylight that shines down on the collection. Phifer took Louis Kahn’s skylight detail in the Kimbell Art Museum as a point of departure, finalizing the ellipsoid shape of the NCMA’s ceiling coffers after numerous light studies conducted by Arup’s London and New York offices. A local boat builder advised on resin technologies for the fiberglass vaults, which rise 5 1⁄2 feet above the ceiling plane.

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances

While sunlight shines down, it by no means pours in. North-facing louvers and removable scrims limit the amount and type of light that penetrates an oculus and reaches an artwork. Three layers of curtains do the same for light coming in from the courtyard openings. Photocells on the roof measure daylight; the information they gather is used to adjust track lighting within the galleries.

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances

These efforts control the quantity of light inside the museum, but the quality of light is undeniable, particularly as it changes over the course of a day. Outside the museum, the changing light produces equally dazzling effects on the 25-foot-high anodized aluminum panels, which at times appear golden, their jagged outline clearly visible, while at other times they seem to dissolve completely.

This is not groundbreaking stuff. But the sum of these small but thoughtful moves erodes boundaries between building and landscape, outside and inside, and even between different genres of art. By avoiding the all-too-easy tendency toward architectural bravado—to the dismay of some—and instead focusing on good design, Phifer has created something beyond just a remarkable building. It is a remarkable place.

Photo © Courtesy of Scott Frances--Barely visible from the ground, a series of sleek aluminum mounds on the roof covers the oculi. Their north-facing louvers reduce heat and direct sun penetration.

site/ground floor plan--drawing Courtesy of Thomas Phifer and Partners

The People

Design Architect
Thomas Phifer and Partners
180 Varick St. Suite 1110
New York, NY
Ph. 212 337 0334
Fax 212 337 0603
Partner in Charge:
Thomas Phifer AIA
Project Partner:
Gregory Reaves AIA, LEED AP
Project Architect:
Gabriel Smith AIA, LEED AP
Project Team:
Adam Ruffin, Katie Bennett, Christoph Timm, Jon Benner, Kerim Demirkan, Len Lopate, Eric Richey, Joseph Sevene, Danny Taft
Local Architect:
Pierce Brinkley Cease + Lee, Raleigh, NC
Partner in Charge:
Clymer Cease, AIA
Project Partner:
Jeffrey Lee, FAIA
Project Architect:
David Francis, AIA
Director of Construction Administration:
Mac Nance
Project Team:
Nelson Tang, Matt Konar, Juliette Dolle, Henry Newell, David Lehman, Jennifer Olson

Consultants:
Landscape Architect:
Lappas + Havener, PA, Durham, N.C.
Principal in Charge:
Walter R. Havener, RLA
Project Team:
Grayson Baur, RLA, Associate, Anja Pohlers, Senior Designer, Jesse Turner, RLA
Structural Engineer:
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, Chicago, IL
Project Team:
William F. Baker PE, SE, FIStructE; Dmitri Jajich SE, PE; David Horos SE, PE, LEED AP; Alessandro Beghini, Phd, PE; Margaret Wtorkowski
Mechanical Engineer:
Altieri Sebor Wieber LLC Norwalk, CT
Andrew J. Sebor, P.E., Principal, Michael A. Freliech, P.E., Principal—HVAC, Jeffrey Leavenworth, P.E., Associate—Chief Electrical, David Lussier, Associate—Fire Protection, Kristen Shehab HVAC Project Engineer, Mariusz Zakrzewski, Electrical Project Engineer, Brian Cherevko, Field Engineer
Local MEP Engineer:
Stanford White, Inc., Raleigh, NC
Natural Lighting Design:
Arup, London and New York
Director:
Andrew Sedgwick, Lighting Designer: Matt Franks
Lighting Design:
Fisher Marantz Stone, New York, NY
Paul Marantz, Margo Wiltshire, Paula Martinez-Nobles
Civil Engineering:
Steven Blake, CE, Artifex-ED, Inc, Denver Co.
Kimley-Horn Associates, Raleigh, NC
Specifications:
Aaron Pine CSI, Morganville, NJ
Acoustics:
Creative Acoustics, LLC; David Greenberg, Norwalk, CT
Construction Manager:
Barnhill – Balfour Beatty, a joint venture. Raleigh NC

Photographer:
Scott Frances
New York, NY
212 777 0099

CAD system, project management, or other software used:
AutoCad, Rhino, 3D Studio Max, VRay

The Products

Structural system:
Steel Frame, Concrete Foundation
Exterior cladding / Glass / Doors:
Aluminum Panels over insulating precast concrete panels
Aluminum Cladding:
LinEl Signature
Stainless steel and glass canopy:
LinEl Signature
Metal/glass curtainwall:
Viracon Glass, Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope, Installed by SPS Corporation
Entrances:
Ellison
Metal doors:
Total Door
Roof/Skylights/Louvers:
Felt back PVC roofing by Sarnfil: Installer Baker Roofing
Skylights:
Supersky
Louvers:
Unicel Architectural Corp., Quebec

Interior finishes
Curtains:
Mary Bright Inc. New York, NY
Fiberglass Ceiling Coffers:
Fibertech Columns Inc. Central S.C.
Cabinetwork and custom woodwork:
Millwork: Triangle Casework Raleigh, NC

Furnishings:
Reception furniture:
Herman Miller
Café Chairs:
Fritz Hansen Tables: Fritz Hansen
Upholstery:
Maharam
Site Furniture:
Fermob USA

Lighting:
Track lighting:
Litelab MR16 spots and wall washers
FluorescentLighting:
Nippo
Controls:
Crestron

Plumbing:
90,000 gal. rainwater cistern for irrigation and pools, waterless urinals.
HVAC and Plumbing:
Ivey Mechanical

Electrical:
Watson Electric

Fire Protection:
ABL Fire Protection

Site work:
Faulconer Construction and Valley Crest Landscaping

Masonry:
Whitman Masonry

HouseVariety

Thursday, January 20, 2011