Buffalo, New York, USA
Shohei Shigematsu of OMA, in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, has completed the renovation and expansion of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum which will soon open its doors to the public, is designed with substantial input from communities throughout Western New York, and the museum’s leadership.
“The project was designed to connect art, nature, and people by providing new links of access and radical transparency, and we’re excited to see the campus come to life as it welcomes new activities and dialogues with global and local communities,” explains Shohei Shigematsu, Partner at OMA, New York.
The inclusive, interactive, and porous campus comprises 50,000 square feet of exhibition space, five studio classrooms, an interior community gathering space, and more than half an acre of new public green space.
Located on the north side of the plot, the Jeffrey E. Gundlach Building adds more than 30,000 square feet of space for the display of special exhibitions.
On the other hand, the Gundlach Building inverts “the traditional model of the art museum as an opaque facility and creating tremendous porosity between interior and exterior.”
The structure generates highly flexible exhibition spaces to present contemporary and modern art of all scales and media.
The first floor of the structure holds five galleries, with a variety of offices, theatres, and circulation points arranged around the four corners.
The floors are of pink terrazzo in the lobby and transition to stone chip throughout the other areas.
A long spiral staircase sits adjacent to the entrance and circulates museum visitors around a large structural column through the different levels of the structure.
The second story holds the promenade, which is large enough to hold large-scale sculptures, with another gallery space in the enclosed core that extends up from the ground floor.
The third floor holds the single largest gallery with 16-foot-tall ceilings.
OMA has noted that this space has only two permanent structural columns, which are “both mirrored and cruciform.”
Connected to the rest of the campus, and more particularly to the Robert and Elisabeth Wilmers Building, designed by E. B. Green and originally constructed in 1905, the Gundlach Building takes on an OMA-designed glass-walled structure, the John J. Albright Bridge that links both edifices in question.
Other existing buildings on site received many updates and improvements such as the neoclassical Wilmers Building which got a new roof for example, and the Seymour H. Knox Building, designed by Gordon Bunshaft and completed in 1962 that will feature a 2,000-square-foot gallery, five classroom studios, a 350-seat auditorium, and a new restaurant.
Project: Buffalo AKG Art Museum Renovation & Expansion
Architects: OMA – The Office for Metropolitan Architecture
Lead Architect: Shohei Shigematsu
Project Architect: Lawrence Siu and Paxton Sheldahl
Design Team: Gregory Serweta, Thomas Holzmann, Maxime Leclerc, Laura Baird, Patricio Fernandez, Napat Kiat-Arpadej, Bartosz Kobylakiewicz, Claudia da Costa, Jesse Catalano, Tamara Jamil, Camille Bongard, Remy Bertin, Joanne Chen, Federico Pompignoli, Jackie Woon Bae, Jan Casimir, Brian Tabolt, Daeho Lee, Philippe Audemard d’Alancon, Yashar Ghasemkhani, and Regan Dyer
Photographs: Courtesy of OMA New York
