Renzo Piano and the Kimbell Art Museum unveiled the long-awaited expansion today. The new building will be built on the west lawn across from the Kimbell’s main entrance. It will be 90,000 square feet, with more than 1/4 of that used for exhibition space. It will also feature an underground, 125-space parking garage, a 315 seat auditorium, and a wing featuring offices, studios, and a cafe.
My thoughts:
While the exact finished appearance is said to be “still in flux,” if it comes across as something at all like the model then the building appears not to be the sort of starchitect excess I feared. It looks rather more restrained and subdued, which is exactly what a great Cultural District museum ought to be. Piano also says the building will use the same materials as the original Kimbell building - concrete, travertine, and glass.
Piano’s buildings usually feature some kind of noteworthy roof, and his Kimbell will be no exception. The new Kimbell will be carbon neutral, and the roof will house solar arrays which will generate as much power as the building uses. The roof will also feature a natural lighting system similar to that of the original Kimbell, with long east-west curved channels and glass panes allowing sunlight to enter but diffusing it to turn it into indirect lighting, much like Kahn’s still amazing baffled skylights.
The building’s going on the west lawn. This is mitigated a bit by the building’s size - it will still leave some lawn space on it’s south side. The Kimbell also revealed that the auditorium and “some of” the parking lots on the old eastern site will “eventually” be demolished and turned into a new greenspace. I’m not particularly happy about the “eventually” part and I also say why not go all the way and remove *all* of the parking lots from the eastern site to turn the entire block into a park?
The upside, from my perspective, to the building’s location is Piano’s goal of driving visitors into the original Kimbell’s real main entrance, the entrance facing the lawn. Most Kimbell visitors enter through what is little more than a back door below grade on the other side of the building, because it’s near a parking lot. It’s a subtle aspect of the suburban mindset that pervades this region still. I do support Piano’s goal of getting people to interact with the Kimbell through its real main entrance. Visitors to the new building will enter through its entrance across from the Kimbell’s real main entrance and the design reinforces Kahn’s original intent.
On the whole, I do like the new design thus far, but I’ll have to see more finished renderings before I can wholly decide. I am still not particularly fond of building on the lawn and leaving the other site’s parking lots, and I am not a fan of a degraded new green space bordered by parking lots (which is what the plans for the other site sound like). If the existing lawn is going to be so sharply reduced, the entirety of the eastern site should be scraped and converted to greenspace. On the other hand, at least the new building’s size will leave some greenspace next to it. From the rendering, I could see the remaining piece of greenspace left over on the south part of the existing lawn being a very pretty piece of greenspace in its own right.
Anyway, enough of my talk. What say you?
Meh. I still wish it wasn’t on the lawn, and I still wish it wasn’t Piano. We’ll see.
The lawn issue doesn’t bother me so much. However, after the downtown TCC debacle, I would rather see some more detailed designs before I get excited.
It is exciting to see the museum growning.
I hate to see them build on the lawn, but they make a pretty compelling argument for doing that. Let’s hope they go through with green space on the other side of the museum.
Anyway we can protest this? This lawn is one of the finest points of the whole cultural district and they should definitely build on the parking lot next to it instead.
I like the initial renderings of the expansion. It seems to complement and harmonize with the original building. However, I am also concerned by the lackluster approach for a new lawn on the Darnell Street lot. I agree with Kevin that the entire lot should be scraped and converted to greenspace. If the museums are concerned with the loss of parking, why not place an underground parking structure beneath a new greenspace?
I think the parties involved should just bite the bullet and scrape part of the WRMC’s parking lots across Lancaster to build a Cultural District parking garage once and for all. The Darnell site should be entirely a park.
Also worth noting that the streetcar will run through the heart of all this, and that’ll also help reduce the need for so many parking spaces.
To echo what I wrote on the FW Forum somewhat… a city isn’t often given gifts like Fort Worth received when it got the Kimbell. All that is asked of us is not to mess with it, not to screw it up. Well, we couldn’t even make it forty years before we blew it.
What a city of complete hicks this makes us seem. And for what? Renzo Piano’s ego? Malcolm Warner’s ego? The west lawn of the Kimbell is the only proper entrance into the building as Kahn intended. It also has been a community treasure for a generation. And now we’re going to throw that all away… for what?
Seriously, if we can’t find some stewards of our civic treasures who are worthy of the responsibility, we’re better off demolishing the Kimbell outright and starting over than we are killing it piecemeal as this plan would do. I am so terribly embarrassed for my hometown today I can barely stand the thought of it. Madness!
I thought the FWElite were looking-at parking garage development as investments 10 years ago - and specifically at one on Montgomery @ W7th & Camp Bowie. By all means, an underground garage near the museums.
I do not understand how destroying forever the Kahn / Johnson landscape between the Carter and Kimbell helps Fortson’s vision of world domination. Can the underground tunnel not go East?
I guess it’s her museum, her artwork, and her billion dollar foundation, and she can do whatever she wants with them. They’re all still on City of Fort Worth land, but I don’t guess that matters, since the citizens of Fort Worth are no longer the owners of the art and foundation.
Anybody else think Piano’s model looks kind of like a piano? Is this some kind of weak architectural inside joke?
Should be a nice selling point to the overpriced condos going up in the 7th Street Corridor - you know…”come move in here while the Kimbell expansion is being built, listen to the roar of heavy trucks carrying marble and concrete for the next three years or more”! Nice! Leave the darn lawn alone. Besides…where else will they pitch those outrageous tents to honor the elite if they cover up the lawn?!
the hippies are going to have to find somewhere else to frisbee.
Because only hippies can enjoy a bit of greenspace, I guess.