continued

The Nerman Museum is a relatively young institution, founded in 1969. In less than 40 years it has built a permanent collection focused on late-20th-century art.

Woo's approach to the museum's design was to set it apart from the predominantly red-brick campus. The Nerman Museum's light Kansas limestone massing contrasts with the Regnier Center's red-brick exterior, rotating to the east at an angle and reaching out to visitors. The limestone-clad forms are even more dramatic in the way they virtually float in the air over a 90-foot- (27-meter-) long glass lobby on the first floor. Perceived another way, the new museum has a classical appearance, as if it were a white Greek temple on a hill, a sanctuary for contemporary art.

The new museum functions as an eastern threshold to the college's collection of contemporary artwork, many pieces of which are distributed around the campus to the west. Woo says, "[W]e began to think of the museum not as a repository for art, but as the start of a longer journey of art on campus." One arrives at the new museum to discover that it is the first stop in a campus-wide display that unites art with the landscape, and scatters it about the 243-acre (98-hectare) campus.

The Nerman Museum attaches to the Regnier Center, yet is held off from it visually with a delicately glazed link. Museum and Center are joined through a long, thin web of glass and perforated metal, framing views of the greater campus beyond. This 3,000-square-foot (280-square-meter) atrium is a transition space, dedicated to preparing Center visitors for the works on display within the museum itself.

One next has the choice to enter a large new cafe or the museum proper, with its museum shop just past the entry threshold. A shift in orientation marks your transition from atrium to museum, as the new building rotates away from the Regnier Center and opens to the campus view through the glass lobby. One can also enter from the campus side through this glazed element, oriented toward a large lawn and streets to the east, by moving under the hovering mass of floating limestone.

At this point one finds a fascinating integration of art and architecture. Artist Leo Villareal's horizontal piece, made of 64 brushed stainless-steel panels with 60,000 white LED lights, occupies the underside of the 22-foot (6.7-meter) cantilever of the second floor over the first floor. It is a constantly moving electronic canvas, animating the building through its dramatically changing artwork.

Woo's museum is a compact building, offering 11,000 square feet (1,000 square meters) of exhibition space, 5,400 square feet (500 square meters) of academic spaces, a 200-seat auditorium, and approximately 3,700 square feet (340 square meters) of art storage. Temporary exhibit galleries are found on the first floor, adjacent to the glazed lobby. More galleries, classrooms, offices, and the auditorium are on the second floor.

Woo has used natural light to maximum effect. For example, sunlight is drawn into the building along its perimeter with clerestory skylights. The light washes the walls, creating an association with the outside, a sense of openness, and a connection to the passing of time as the quality of light shifts.

This connection to sunlight, and the to campus beyond, makes the new museum a building of the landscape — architecture that is always conscious of its place on the plains in Kansas.   >>>

Discuss this article in the Architecture Forum...

Michael J. Crosbie is editor-in-chief of Faith & Form, the chair of the University of Hartford’s Department of Architecture, and a contributing editor to ArchitectureWeek.

SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE The second-floor overhang at the entry to the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art is home to a work by artist Leo Villareal that employs 64 stainless-steel panels and 60,000 LEDs. Photo: Timothy Hursley, The Arkansas Office A secondary stair accesses the Nerman Museum's 200-seat auditorium. Photo: Wonbo Woo The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art is Kansas's only museum of contemporary art. Photo: Timothy Hursley, The Arkansas Office First-floor plan drawing of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. Image: Kyu Sung Woo Architects Extra Large Image Second-floor plan drawing of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. Image: Kyu Sung Woo Architects Extra Large Image Pespective sketches of the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. Image: Kyu Sung Woo Architects A long stair of glass and stone links the main lobby of the Nerman Museum to gallery spaces above. Photo: Chris Murphy A two-story atrium connects the Nerman Museum to an adjacent building at Johnson County Community College. Photo: Timothy Hursley, The Arkansas Office Extra Large Image   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.