architecture now and The Future: MIAMI ART MUSEUM BY HERZOG & DE MEURON

Herzog & de Meuron’s design for the new Pérez Art Museum Miami is highly responsive to the city’s climate and the needs of a young, rising art museum. The three-story building will sit upon an elevated platform and below a canopy, both of which will extend far beyond the Museum’s walls, creating a shaded veranda and plazas.

Working with local and international landscape designers and horticulturists, the architects will use this space to “bring the park into the museum” in new and innovative ways. The new Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) will offer 200,000 square feet of programmable space, including 120,000 square feet of interior space, more than three times that of the Museum’s current facility.

It will also include approximately 80,000 square feet of exterior program space for the display of works of art, educational activities, relaxation and dining. The building will also house an educational complex planned to foster active learning about and through art and art-making, with a library, auditorium, classrooms, art and digital media workshop spaces; and a restaurant and store.

The new design will stimulate and support collection growth, enable MAM to better fulfill its role as the principal visual arts educational resource in the region, and support the institution’s expanded mission to serve local populations as a unique social forum.

The interior of the Museum will comprise a series of distinct galleries and other public areas connected by a series of interstitial spaces displaying the permanent collection, allowing for a fluid visitor experience.

Transparency on the first and third levels of the galleries will reveal the public and semi-public functions within: the entry halls, auditorium, shop and café on the first level and the education center and staff offices on the third.

An open-air parking garage will be located beneath the Museum and surrounded by landscaping and terraces. The permanent collection galleries will be located on the first and, principally, the second level, which will also house extensive temporary exhibition galleries.

While mainly oriented inward so as to focus on the art, the second floor galleries will incorporate carefully placed windows to allow for natural light and views of the surrounding park and bay. The main gallery level of the new museum will appear to hover between more transparent levels, all of which will be shaded by the canopy above. The canopy’s overhang will create a series of outdoor spaces that bridge the museum, park, and city.

The canopy will be perforated to allow in light, and lush vegetation will literally be built amongst the columns, transforming the veranda into a multi-dimensional garden. The tropical plants enfolding the museum will be integral to the experience. The design allows for multiple transitions, as visitors gradually move from the outside to the inside, hot to cold, humid to dry, and from the street or park to the art.

A set of stairs the width of the Museum will link the building to the bay walk in Museum Park. In recognition of PAMM’s role as an emerging and rapidly growing art museum, the architects have designed a building that can expand organically from within without major disruptions.