Ogden Museum of Southern Art
New Orleans
Concordia Architects + Errol Barron / Michael Toups Architects

A light-filled entry hall suggests a unique program

© Robert Brantley

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The new Ogden Museum exists as both an important cultural institution as well as a major landmark, complimenting the warehouse district context in which it resides. The central feature of the building is a light-filled entry hall, a very public space that unites the more intimate scale of the galleries around it.

Inside the building, an l-shaped gallery block wraps around the entry hall, which is described as a lantern because of the way it filters light, casting a soft glow onto the street and sidewalk below. Rarely more than one room away from hall, the galleries, which are windowless to protect the art, are domestic in scale, contrasting with the entry hall's large public volume.

To change floors and circulate through the galleries, visitors must pass through this central space. To some, this large space will seem as much like a covered outside room or piazza as a stair hall, because of its light and scale. The architects' intent was, in part, to relieve monotony through the contrast of spatial conditions: large/small, light/dark, domestic/institutional, open/closed.

Location:
New Orleans

Gross square footage:
50,000 sq.ft.

Total construction cost:
$9.4 million

Owner:
University of New Orleans

Architect:
A Joint Venture:
Concordia Architects + Errol Barron / Michael Toups Architects