Architecture
Renzo Piano, winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1998, is the architect of the Center’s 55,000-square-foot (5,100 m2) building; he had been selected after Nasher met him at the opening of the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, in 1997. Piano worked in collaboration with landscape architect Peter Walker on the design of the 2-acre (8,100 m2) Garden. The building was constructed by The Beck Group, which also served as associate architect.
The facility opened in 2003 in a 55,000-square-foot building on a 2.4-acre site adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art. The building is made of parallel stonewalls which create the gallery pavilions. Each pavilion is enclosed by low-iron glass façades and roofs that permit 500-foot long unobstructed view corridors from the street, through the building, and across the length of the garden. The museum has an arched glass roof with a perforated aluminum screen in an egg-crate pattern that directs the sun into the galleries, which were laid out in anticipation of the sun’s daily arc from southeast to southwest (but recently has been an issue as the reflective glare of nearby Museum Tower has penetrated through the roof, putting portions of the collection at risk of damage).
The museum has two levels: the ground level houses three galleries, institute offices, a boardroom and a gift shop. The galleries themselves feature polished stone walls and timber floors. A basement, much larger than the superstructure, houses a further gallery for delicate objects, additional offices, an auditorium, conservation workshops, a kitchen, mechanical services and so on. These, too, give on to the garden, which occupies by far the greater part of the centre's site. The garden terraces downward to the auditorium, creating an open air theatre.
Read more about this topic: Nasher Sculpture Center
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