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 Contemporary St. Louis Art Museum

The Contemporary St. Louis Art Museum has been designed by Allied Works Architecture and

completed in September 2003. Is a non-

collecting exhibition, educational and event

space in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is located in

a neighborhood of empty lots, burned out churches and lone townhouses that mark a lost

twentieth-century urban ideal. The site is located in the Grand Center District, adjacent to the

Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. Together, the institutions are a focal point for the arts

community in St. Louis and a catalyst for the redevelopment of the surrounding neighborhood.

The building is located at the intersection of North Spring Avenue and Washington Avenue,

 being oriented north bt it’s longitudinal development, but it’s entrance oriented east. 

The Contemporary’s mission is not to preserve, but to provoke: presenting work from noted

artists such as Maya Lin, Bruce Nauman and Cindy Sherman, as well as emerging

contemporary artists.

Architects practice

Allied Works Architecture is a 40-person practice led by Brad Cloepfil from offices in

Portland, Oregon and New York City. The defining project of Allied Works is the Maryhill

Overlook in the Columbia River Gorge, completed in 1998, the first of a series of five

installation designs in diverse landscapes across the Pacific Northwest. In recent years the

 practice has gone on to complete a number of critically acclaimed projects, including the

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; the Dutchess County Residence Guest House; the re-

design of 2 Columbus Circle for the Museum of Arts and Design; Booker T. Washington High

School for the Performing and Visual Arts in the Dallas Arts District; the University of

Michigan Museum of Art; and a new feature animation studio in Emeryville, California.

Building descriptionThe two-story museum provides open, flexible space for exhibitions and programs while

emphasizing transparency at ground level. The building is formed by two intersecting ribbons of

concrete and stainless steel mesh that weave and overlap to define the principal volumes. The

lower walls bound the museum and create a series of large interconnecting galleries. The walls

alternately delineate the site boundaries and fold inwards, inviting the public to enter and

 providing views through the building from the neighboring streets. These serpentine walls touch

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the sidewalk and fold inwards, inviting the

 public to enter and providing views completely

through the building from the street intersection

outside. The upper walls span above the

galleries, providing spaces for administration

and education. Between these walls, ceiling

 planes are held at varying heights to create

variations in scale, proportion and enclosure,

 providing a diversity of day lighting conditions and curatorial opportunities. The ceilings float

 between these upper boundaries at varying heights, modulating the proportion and light of the

galleries. The two realms of space and structure converge and diverge, spinning the perception of

enclosure and transparency in multiple directions.

The “upper order” of panels, clad in glistening stainless-steel metal mesh, creates a powerful

architectural definition of volume .Cloepfil changed ceiling heights between the panels, slotting

the gaps with clerestories. The floor areas also shift gently through ramps and shallow stairs,thereby defining three large exhibition areas primarily by differences in height (13, 20, and 26

feet) and quality of light. With floor space freed of columns, the arrangement permits curators to

further subdivide at will.

More concrete panels unfurl along the curving sidewalk front and project beyond the building’s

volume — in a long, daring cantilever  — to frame a dramatic rectangle of sky over the entrance.The sandblasted surface and more sunlight-refracting mesh present a tough exterior, but one

which subtly contrasts with the crisp severity of Ando’s building next door. This Minimalist

alternation of materials, pattern, and texture represents a reconciliation of opposite impulses. He

needed a largely closed exterior to provide ample art-hanging space.

Key words:  Education center, multi-purpose presentation space, reconfigurable galleries,

architectural concrete, flexible space

References: http://www.alliedworks.com 

http://www.archdaily.com