University of Michigan Museum of Art

An addition adds much-needed exhibition space to a 153-year-old institution and formalizes a campus pedestrian hub

By David Sokol

The University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) has occupied all or part of the sandstone, Beaux-Arts-style Alumni Memorial Hall since its completion by Donaldson and Meier Architects in 1910. Founded in 1856, it is one of the oldest university art collections in the United States, and since then, it has grown to include more than 18,000 artworks. To accommodate that growth, and to reinvent the institution as a “town square” for the wider campus, UMMA undertook a renovation of the original structure as well as the addition of a 53,000-square-foot wing by Portland, Oregon—based Allied Works Architecture. The expanded facility, which reopened in late March, is an understated yet mature work that defers to Alumni Hall, accommodates existing site uses, and speaks to the institution’s desire to create a community-focused space.

Program

The Allied Works museum addition is a roughly T-shaped volume clad in expanses of limestone panels quarried in Wisconsin. Elsewhere, the double-glazed curtain wall is distinguished by a colonnade of 12-by-41⁄2-inch tubular steel supports, which evokes the proportions and rhythm of Donaldson and Meier’s entry columns. It is located between the north elevation of Alumni Memorial Hall and the Albert Kahn—designed Angell Hall, on the last buildable site on the original University of Michigan campus.

“The museum wanted an important building that could work on a campus that hadn’t really supported contemporary architecture,” says Allied Works founder Brad Cloepfil, AIA. “The other charge was to counter the introversion of the historic building.” The new wing is intended to invite students, in particular, into the building.

In one respect, the design team had no choice but to welcome the student population. UMMA’s building site directly obstructs the so-called Diag, a major axis for cross-campus pedestrian traffic. “In the middle of the day, a constant flood of students travels diagonally through that space,” says project architect Chelsea Grassinger. “A lot of our initial thinking had to do with respecting the original flow of circulation. The siting and massing of the building tries to integrate with it as much as possible.”

Solution

Officially known as the Maxine and Stuart Frankel and the Frankel Family Wing, Allied Works’ design embraces the Diag by eliminating visual obstructions at grade.

The architects organized the building around three cast-in-place concrete decks. Each one rests on three 6-foot-diameter concrete piers and joins to the steel curtain-wall structure. The limestone panels are clipped to relieving angles. Cloepfil explains, “The intention of the big cantilevers is to maintain some level of transparency [on the ground floor], so it would feel that we were respecting the openness of the site and engaging people as they travel along the Diag and look into the building.”

Cloepfil pushed the curtain wall to the exterior of the tubular-steel colonnade to frame circulation areas. These “lenses” reveal interior activity to potential museumgoers traversing the Diag; for those inside, they provide views to campus without distracting from the work on display.

The trio of decks also fans out in a pinwheel formation around a central atrium that allows students passing through the building to glimpse exhibitions above them. Should they decide to explore the galleries upstairs, they will find three stairwells that support a variety of sequences for repeat visitors. (There is no admission fee.)

The new building not only triples the UMMA’s exhibition space, it also accommodates classrooms, conservation labs, a curatorial library, retail, and a 235-seat lecture hall. Yet its entrance clearly feels secondary to the Alumni Hall’s front doors.

Commentary

The cantilevering parti of Allied Works’ design defines three exterior courtyards, and eastern and western portions of the new volume are nipped inward to create sheltered porticos bordering these outdoor spaces. But the courtyards are largely unanimated. Hardscaping elements, additional plantings, or arts programming could easily rectify this effect. Up above, the atrium feels truncated. Glazing on the tubular-steel armature that also frames the roof plane would amplify the verticality of this essential feature.

Otherwise, Allied Works has gracefully assimilated the Frankel wing to the well-traversed axis of the Diag without sacrificing the quiet, contemplative quality of the exhibition spaces. The fritted-glass curtain wall bathes the galleries in diffuse daylight. The effect is moody yet casual, negating a new student’s misperception of art viewing as a rarefied activity. The stairwells are particularly successful at striking this mood. Distributed throughout the building in intimately scaled segments, the stairwells are more like rooms that invite student lounging and sketching.

Completion Date: March 2009

Gross square footage:
Existing Building: 40,362 sq.ft.
New Addition: 53,452 sq.ft.
Total: 93,814 sq.ft.

Total construction cost:
$30 million (Addition $22 million, Renovation $8)

Owner: University of Michigan

Architect:
Allied Works Architecture
1532 SW Morrison Street
Portland, Oregon 97205
Phone: 503-227-1737
Fax: 503-227-6509

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