Expanded View: The New Wing of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center

Expanded View: The New Wing of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center

Julie Decker With a Foreword by J a m e s P e p p e r H e n r y, Director of the Anchorage Museum

Princeton Architectural Press N e w Yo r k

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context of reviews.

Expanded view : the new wing of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center /

Every reasonable attempt has

Julie Decker ; with a foreword by James Pepper Henry. —

been made to identify owners of

1st ed.

copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-56898-892-4 (alk. paper) 1. Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center. 2.

Chipperfield, David. 3.

Museum architecture—Alaska—Anchorage. 4.

Architecture—Alaska—Anchorage—History—21st century. 5.

Anchorage (Alaska)—Buildings, structures, etc. I. Title.

F901.5.D43 2010 720.798’35—dc22 2009030429

6

Foreword

by James Pepper Henry

10

Expanding History: F o r t y Ye a r s o f the Anchorage Museum

16

Selection Process and Design Developement

24

Concept

32

The Building Realized

46

Expanded Scope

52

Execution

58

Completed Construction

by David Chipperfield

70

Project Credits

71

Image Credits

The fritting is mirrored to reflect the diverse qualities of light properties for color neutrality.

M aterial

R esp o nses

—

I nternal

The new building’s concrete structure is exposed internally, revealing the volumetric discipline, with inside spaces created by infill walls between the structural columns.

The variety of nonexhibition public functions and the ethnographic collections allowed for the movement away from the white-box aesthetic of other museums. The palette of materials and colors unites and enlivens a series of rooms in the new wing (art exhibition spaces in plaster; ethnographic exhibition spaces, lobby, and circulation spaces in colored metal; and the atrium and cafe in colored/natural timber). The floors are a continuous surface of polished and honed cementitous topping, and ceilings are suspended metal panels with integrated services and lighting.

Objects

and

the

L and

The visitor to Anchorage is impressed by its Finisterre quality—the exciting feeling of being near the edge of the world and at a frontier point between man and nature.

Looking toward the landscape from the city, one cannot fail to feel the power of the environment. While many cities suppress their natural surroundings, Anchorage sits in awe of its physical context.

30 c o ncept

throughout the annual cycle, and the glass has low iron

—David Chipperfield

David Chipperfield, concept sketch illustrating the horizontal, rectilinear forms that make up the expansion.

The programmatic functions inside the building drive its form.

31 c o ncept

The building is designed to continually bring the visitor in contact with both the natural and built surroundings through a carefully articulated series of views.

The Building Realized

he made his way from the airplane to the downtown

core on his first trip to Anchorage. In Alaska the natural landscape and weather dominate the man-made. While his design for the Anchorage Museum is clearly a part of his larger body of work and reveals a continuation of forms and materials he has explored elsewhere, it is unquestionably site specific, speaking directly to the city and to the city’s relationship to its natural setting.

The four-story building features dramatic new views of the setting, including a new perspective of the mountains that surround Anchorage. Accessing these views became the primary consideration for placement of the fourth-floor gallery and design of the circulation flow in the building. Instead of placing large galleries on the ground floor, which would simplify the logistics of loading in exhibition materials, Chipperfield’s design draws the visitors up to the vistas, through the structure to the third-floor galleries, which feature a view of downtown Anchorage, and the fourth-floor gallery, which offers a unique reward for the vertical trip: an expansive view of the Chugach Foothills that form the backdrop to Anchorage.

Model/massing study

34 T he B u ildin g R eali z ed

D

avid Chipperfield knew what challenges he faced as

The architecture of the museum responds to a featured disciplines of art, science, and history—in one facility. The ground floor features public services, such as the admissions, a gift shop, and a cafe.

The large, cantilevered metal staircase that leads people up to the fourth floor is a dramatic sculptural element. Climbing the staircase offers glimpses from each floor’s landing of the facade and the landscape outside.

The natural light prevents any space within the new wing from feeling dark or closed in. Chipperfield was influenced by the dramatic quality of light in Anchorage, where the sun is often low on the horizon due to the latitudinal position of the city. “The building takes on the light qualities that are here,” Chipperfield says. “One of the great materials of Alaska is the light.”

The exterior of the museum, visible from most of downtown as well as from the museum’s new outdoor plaza, is a unique, custom-designed facade featuring over six hundred panels that are each four feet wide and nineteen to twenty-six feet high, and composed of insulated fritted glass in custom aluminum frames. The decorative

Windows placed along the length of the fourth-floor gallery offer views over the existing building and to the mountains to the east.

On the first floor, bright yellow panels contrast with the structural concrete.

T he B u ildin g R eali z ed

unique program: to accommodate the museum’s three

35

1'-0

36 4'-0"

4'-0"

4'-0"

4'-0"

4'-0"

6'-8"

WATERPROOF MEMBRANE

SCRIM BLIND ADDITIONAL BLACKOUT BLIND

VENTING 1/4" VENT HOLE AT EACH JAMB GUIDERAIL FOR BLIND 1" LAMINATED INSULATED GLASS

19'-0.5"

1/2" LAMINATED ACCESS DOOR

PERFORATION 3/4" FIN TUBE (WATER IN FIN TUBE 180째 F) STOP BEAD

6'-8"

3/4" MAGNESIA SCREED

COATED METAL CEILING PANEL 1/4" GLASS CW-90 MINERAL WOOL INSULATION (4 1/2" THICK) MIRRORING METAL PANEL

13'-1"

GALVANIZED BACK PANEL WALL TYPE 01/ COVER PANEL (2 LAYER 1/2" PLASTERBOARD SKIMMED AND PAINTED) 4" FRITTED PATTERN DIVIDED IN 4 STRIPES MIRRORING METAL PANEL BEHIND GLASS BORDER SCREEN PRINTING GASKET JOINT

6'-8"

5/8" SHADOW GAP

Typical facade detail

T he B u ildin g R eali z ed

EXTRUDED SILICON GASKET ALUMINUM GRATING

fritting pattern was specially developed for the project. The

37

challenging by the extreme environmental conditions. The facade is made up of layered insulated glass: on the innermost layer, clear, low-iron sheets of glass; in the center, a fritted pane with a silver reflective coating on one side and a metallic finish on the other; and, on the outermost layer, tempered, low-iron sheer glass. All facade units were

The roof of the original museum building meets the new construction

manufactured in China, where they were preassembled prior to shipping to allow for easier installation. The result is a reflective surface that appears to be constantly changing.

Transparency was critical to Chipperfield’s design philosophy for the museum. The more than six hundred glass panels allow people outside to see in and reflect the sky and three hundred birch trees on the grounds.

The pattern of reflective versus translucent or transparent glass was determined by the needs within the museum to screen natural light within exhibit versus circulation spaces. “The idea of this museum is to keep giving you opportunities to look outside the building,� Chipperfield says. This is a deliberate change from the old-fashioned notion of a museum, where activities are limited inwardly and objects

West facade nearing completion

One of the glass panels is slid into place on the west facade.

the B u ildin g R eali z ed

fabrication requirements of the facade were made more

must be held in dark boxes for protection. New technolo-

38 T he B u ildin g R eali z ed

gies that allow for UV protection within the glass itself were implemented here, allowing Chipperfield to incorporate, albeit carefully, natural light. The contrast between a new museum opened to light and the older model of a museum as a facility that cannot accommodate natural light is made more obvious with this project by the juxtaposition of the new extension with the existing building, a brick-clad, colonnaded building designed by Mitchell/ Giurgola in 1986. The density of the form is intensified by an exterior with few windows or punctuations of light.

While the expansion respects, preserves, and nestles directly against the original, it deliberately subverts the traditional architectural language of museum design with more than its transparency. In addition to the inverted arrangement of galleries, a nontraditional use of colors is an unexpected departure from the white-walled museum interior: bold yellow walls and a yellow fiberglass desk greet visitors as they enter the lobby, warm wood tones frame the central stair, and deep red walls and leather chairs makes the cafe anything but the typical cold and sterile. The interiors have a range of finishes, with exposed

Model for form studies

concrete columns throughout, while the gallery spaces

39 T he B u ildin g R eali z ed

are a blank slate of drywall for exhibitions. The Museum Building Committee continually stressed the importance of creating a sense of warmth inside the building to contrast with and mitigate the often-harsh elements outside.

Made of a series of horizontal, rectangular spaces resting parallel to each other and stacked to varying heights, the building is made of simple shapes with exquisite, quiet, timeless precision. The museum design allows each visitor to experience the natural surroundings at the same time as they observe the art within. It allows the museum to reach out to the community and to reframe the culture of Alaska.

South elevation

North elevation

West elevation