Displaying items by tag: campus

The Joan Mitchell Center just underwent a big renovation of its Treme campus, including upgrades to its historic buildings by Jonathan Tate and a modern new 8,000-square-foot studio building by Lee Ledbetter.

The big addition to the campus is the Ledbetter-designed studio space, a striking modern structure with spare, high-ceilinged studios. They are working to attain LEED certified building, which was built with rainwater management in mind.

Today the North Carolina Museum of Art unveiled a new vision plan for its 164-acre campus. The phased, long-term plan calls for a new campus entrance and streetscape, increased parking capacity, woodland and meadow restoration, additional Park trails and infrastructure, improved sustainability measures, and additional outdoor works of art.

The Museum enlisted landscape architecture and urban design firm Civitas, Inc., of Denver, Colorado, to develop the plan and commissioned internationally renowned artist Jim Hodges to create a signature work of art from the existing smokestack on campus. The Museum’s director of planning and design, Dan Gottlieb, is leading the project.

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, known for daring installations that can stretch as long as a football field, will announce Monday a group of long-term projects with some of the country’s most prominent living artists, including Laurie Anderson, James Turrell and Jenny Holzer, as well as a partnership with the foundation of the late post-abstract expressionist Robert Rauschenberg.

When the roughly $55 million project is completed in 2017, Mass MoCA will be the largest contemporary art museum in the country, with more than 250,000 square feet of gallery space. It will also be one of the most eclectic, with a campus that features everything from rock and bluegrass festivals to dance premieres and a 27,000-square-foot building devoted to the drawings of conceptual artist Sol LeWitt.

It keeps no permanent collection, and its exhibition focus is on new artwork. But the past is ever-present at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

In fact, an old hand-drawn map of the site, dating to when this sprawling campus of 26 buildings was home to Arnold Print Works, serves just fine as a visual aid for museum director Joseph C. Thompson as he stands in a conference room and points out spots on the museum campus that are targeted for an ambitious expansion plan.

Buildings that now showcase art are marked on the old map as blacksmith shops and coal sheds.

With the stroke of Gov. Deval Patrick’s pen a few weeks ago, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art got the go-ahead to realize the nearly 30-year-old dream of transforming a 19^th century, 26-building, 16-acre factory complex into a destination arts center that would also help revive the economy of North Adams, Mass.

As the art world knows, the road has been a bit bumpy and, along the way, the vision has changed. But Mass MoCA has hit something of a groove of late, giving state officials the confidence to allocate $25.4 million from state coffers for the expansion. Now, under director Joe Thompson — who’s been there for 29 years, from the beginning — it will reclaim almost all of the 600,000 square feet campus. Massachusetts taxpayers’ money will pay for the necessary infrastructure improvements, for fitting out the parts of the factory complex that are not currently in use, to make them ready for more art.

A major step has been taken in the Menil Collection’s master plan to create a “neighborhood of art” on their 30-acre campus. The Houston museum has chosen landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh to helm the expansion, which consists of the construction of six buildings dedicated to art, an outdoor sculpture park, bungalows, and green spaces spread across several blocks. Van Valkenburgh, who has offices in Brooklyn, NY and Cambridge, MA, has redesigned Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House (Washington, D.C.), Brooklyn Bridge Park (New York), Hudson River Park (New York), and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston). The London-based firm David Chipperfield Architects is directing the Menil’s overarching expansion plan, which includes the creation of new green spaces, walkways, visitor amenities, and gallery buildings.

Renzo Piano designed the Menil, which was founded by collectors John and Dominique de Menil, in 1987. The museum houses the de Menil’s comprehensive collection of 20^th century art, which includes works by René Magritte (1898-1967), Man Ray (1890-1976), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), and Mark Rothko (1903-1970). The museum also includes a separate gallery dedicated to Cy Twombly (1928-2011), which was also designed by Piano.  

The first phase of the renovation is expected to kick off in September 2013.

Next fall doors will open to Paris’ Parsons the New School for Design for the second time. Frank Alvah Parsons, who founded the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (now Parsons), initially opened a French branch in 1921. The Paris location closed temporarily during World War II and when Parson merged with the New School for Social Research in 1970, the Paris branch was included. The New York and Paris campuses continued to grow apart until their association was no more than a technical one. In 2010 the Paris institution changed its name to the Paris College of Art and the New School could return to Paris using the Parsons moniker.

The new campus will be announced on November 29 at the Palais de Tokyo. Located on the Rue Saint-Roch, the Paris School of Art and Design will accommodate 300 to 500 students, who will be able to begin their studies there or in New York. Parson also has associated campuses in Shanghai and Mumbai. The school will offer bachelor’s and master’s programs in multiple art disciplines, fashion, design, and business.