Uncommonly Responsive Museum Design

Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the new Miami Art Museum will offer 200,000 square feet of programmable space, including 120,000 square feet of interior space - more than three times that of the Museum's current facility. It will also include approximately 80,000 square feet of exterior program space for the display of works of art, educational activities, relaxation and dining. This expansion will provide room for larger and more varied displays of the Museum's collection and special exhibitions. The building will also house an educational complex planned to foster active learning about and through art and art-making, with a library, auditorium, classrooms, art and digital media workshop spaces; and a café and store. The new design will stimulate and support collection growth, enable MAM to better fulfill its role as the principal visual arts educational resource in the region, and support the institution's expanded mission to serve local populations as a unique social forum.

Herzog & de Meuron's design for the new Miami Art Museum is highly responsive to Miami's climate and the needs of a young, rising art museum. The three-story building will sit upon an elevated platform and below a canopy, both of which will extend far beyond the Museum's walls, creating a shaded veranda and plazas. Working with local and international landscape designers and horticulturists, the architects will use this space to "bring the park into the museum" in new and innovative ways.

The interior of the Museum will comprise a series of distinct galleries and other public areas connected by a series of interstitial spaces displaying the permanent collection, allowing for a fluid visitor experience. Transparency on the first and third levels of the galleries will reveal the public and semi-public functions within: the entry halls, auditorium, shop and café on the first level and the education center and staff offices on the third. An open-air parking garage will be located beneath the Museum and surrounded by landscaping and terraces.

The permanent collection galleries will be located on the first and, principally, the second level, which will also house extensive temporary exhibition galleries. While mainly oriented inward so as to focus on the art, the second floor galleries will incorporate carefully placed windows to allow for natural light and views of the surrounding park and bay. The main gallery level of the new museum will appear to hover between more transparent levels, all of which will be shaded by the canopy above. 

The canopy's overhang will create a series of outdoor spaces that bridge the museum, park, and city. The canopy will be perforated to allow in light, and lush vegetation will literally be built amongst the columns, transforming the veranda into a multi-dimensional garden. The tropical plants enfolding the museum will be integral to the experience. The design allows for multiple transitions, as visitors gradually move from the outside to the inside, hot to cold, humid to dry, and from the street or park to the art. A set of stairs the width of the Museum will link the building to the bay walk in Museum Park.

In recognition of MAM's role as an emerging and rapidly growing art museum, the architects have designed a building that can expand organically from within without major disruptions. As MAM's collection continues to grow, additional walls and rooms can be added within the fluid interior volumes. In addition, discrete gallery expansions can be made, at a later date, without interruption of the Museum's daily activities. Various options for a larger 25,000 square foot expansion within the museum's site have also been explored in support of future growth.

Pritzker Prize-Winning Architects

Based in Basel, Switzerland, Herzog & de Meuron is known for designs that are at once highly inventive and sensitive to the site, geography, and culture of the region for which the building is planned.  Among their critically acclaimed museum projects are the de Young Museum, in San Francisco (2005); the expansion of the Walker Art Center, in Minneapolis (2005); Schaulager for the Laurenz Foundation, in Basel (2003); and the conversion of a power plant into Tate Modern, in London (2000), as well as the new development for Transforming Tate Modern (projected completion in 2012).  Among its many other widely-recognized projects is the "Bird's Nest" Beijing National Stadium, site of the 2008 Olympics.  For their distinguished accomplishments, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron were awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2001.

Together with Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger, Senior Partner of Herzog & de Meuron, is partner-in-charge of the new Miami Art Museum. She has been a partner in the firm of Herzog & de Meuron since 1994 and also led the expansion of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2005) and IKMZ BTU Cottbus, Information, Communications and Media Center, Brandenburg Technical University, Cottbus, Germany (2004), among other projects. 

• On October 21, 2009, Pierre de Meuron and Christine Binswanger presented and discussed the state-of-the-art design on October 21, 2009, at Lincoln Theater. Miami Art Museum Director Terence Riley joined in a Q & A with the audience, following the presentation. Read a transcript from the Q & A. 
  
  
• Green elements  of the new MAM in Museum Park