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The new Miami Art Museum at Museum Park
Herzog & de Meuron
Park view
© Herzog & de Meuron, visualization by Artefactorylab

NEW AND EXPANDED MIAMI ART MUSEUM
WILL OPEN IN 2013

Completed Herzog & de Meuron Design Unveiled

A New MAM

The new MAM will be more than three times the size of its current facility, with 32,000 square feet of galleries, providing space for larger and more varied displays of the Museum’s rapidly growing permanent collection and special exhibitions. The museum will be an anchor of the new, 29-acre Museum Park overlooking Biscayne Bay, which will include public gardens and sculpture installations. The building will also feature an educational complex with a library, auditorium, classrooms, and workshop space, and a cafe and store. The new design will stimulate and support collection growth and enable MAM to better fulfill its role as an educational resource for the city and beyond.

Herzog & de Meuron’s design responds 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 horticulturists and landscape designers, the architects will use this space to “bring the park into the museum” in new and innovative ways.

The interior of the Museum will feature a series of distinct galleries and other public rooms connected by spaces displaying the permanent collection, creating a fluid visitor experience. A flexible system of galleries will allow the visitor to step in and out of very different encounters with art. Transparency on the first and third levels of the galleries will reveal the activities 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 on grade and surrounded by landscaping and terraces.

The permanent collection galleries will be located on the first and second level, which will also house extensive temporary exhibition galleries. While mainly oriented inward toward the exhibition space, the second floor galleries will also feature 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. A unique feature of the design, the building will include several “anchor” galleries, approximately 20 feet by 20 feet, for which the Museum will commission long-term site-specific installations.

The canopy’s overhang will create a series of outdoor spaces that bridge the museum, park, and city. The canopy will be strategically perforated to allow in light at appropriate areas, and lush vegetation cascading from the openings will transform the veranda into a garden. The microclimate under this canopy will be regulated through geothermal cooling of the exterior surfaces and by the canopy itself, one of the many “green” strategies being undertaken for the new museum. The design allows for multiple transitions, as visitors gradually move from the outside to the inside, hot to cool, 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 ongoing growth, the architects have designed a building which can expand organically from within without major disruptions. As MAM’s collection continues to grow, additional walls and rooms can be added. In addition, future gallery expansions can be made without interruption of the Museum’s daily activities.

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