For this addition to the National Ornamental Metal Museum complex, I was given a pre-defined building form that I then had to study and manipulate to fit the site and the program I was given. The program called for a series of new galleries for large and small sculpture, a shop, and an event space for public and private events.
Through my study, I discovered a characteristic that is inherent to the form I was given, which is the creation of a gateway condition by the lifting of the center volume. With this in mind, I multiplied and reconfigured the form to create gateways through the building to the existing museum campus and from the existing campus to the river.
The gallery spaces are contained within the four lifted volumes, which open up to the center court formed by the intersecting gateways, creating an inward focus on the upper levels that visually ties the galleries to each other as well as to the event space below.
