The Parrish Art Museum has moved into a new construction in Water Mill, New York, roughly triple the distance of its previous home nearby. The new building, which opened in November 2012 and was designed by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron together with local architect Douglas Moyer, stands outside from the context of its own Long Island location due to its size, form and materials. While strictly a museum with service facilities, the construction is nevertheless very homelike, as will be researched here. My tour of the “house for art” hopefully provides a couple of classes for homeowners, regarding both its structure and interiors.
John Hill
The very first homelike belief of the museum, which is set back from a large grassy field on the Montauk Highway, comes when one goes beyond the east end of the building to reach the parking lot behind it. Here one sees that the double gables that operate the complete length of the construction. While also barnlike from how these roofs overhang past the concrete and dark wood walls, the gable type, as we will see, is a theme that helps organize the inside spaces and give the galleries a suitable scale for your art.
John Hill
Another first impression is how long that the museum is: 615 ft, to be exact. The construction, which runswest, hugs the floor tightly and seems to be roof compared to wall; the former is sprinkled with skylights that give a subtle hint at what is happening inside.
John Hill
Before we get nearer to the construction, it’s good to point out the landscape next to the parking lot, which incorporates two parallel swales for storm water management. Not only do the swales reduce runoff into the sewer, but their layout echoes the construction in the long avenues they cut across the website. Bridges traverse the swales to allow access from the parking area into the building.
John Hill
The west end of the construction is similar to the west end — with the double gable protruding outside the walls — but in addition, it features a porch that immediately serves the café and auditorium on this distant end of the construction. Evident on those ends is the inspiration of vernacular architecture in the region, such as agrarian structures, as well as more abstract domestic forms.
John Hill
The porch is rather large, but given the amount of the construction, it’s completely appropriate. My first trip to the museum was on a rainy day, but I could take refuge under the roof and revel in the surrounding landscape, which contains a winery on the west.
John Hill
The roofs overhang across the long north and south sides, not just the west and west ends. All these overhangs align with all the concrete pad where the museum sits. Visitors walk together these sheltered walkways after making their way from the parking lot into the construction. Underneath these zones, the most economical structure of the construction is apparent: rough concrete, exposed timber structure and corrugated metal on the bottom of the roofing.
John Hill
An exception to the “cheap” exterior is the continuous bench that runs across the bottom of the cement walls. Additionally made from concrete but at a much better finish than the wall over, the seat is an inviting surface that’s particularly suited to heat days (not the cool and rainy day when I visited).
John Hill
The entry is subtle except when the viewer is located on axis with it, as in this photo. An outdoor space is cut into the 615-foot-long construction, and parallel glass walls give a view to the other hand.
John Hill
Here is a view from in the lobby awaiting the parking lot. The entry porch past the glass wall is extremely homelike, acting as a sheltered transition between the people outside realm and the indoor private realm. The actual entry is via the black doorway visible on the wall at left, meaning that this glass wall is only for views and natural lighting.
John Hill
The built-in seating outside is carried through the lobby, but it’s implemented in wood instead of concrete here. These chairs are not as well integrated into the wall as the ones out, but they’re welcome nevertheless.
Also, the lobby is the visitor’s first glimpse of the way both gables come together — the V type of the timber structure is the lowest point inside.
John Hill
The spine along the middle of the construction is broken down from X-shaped steel bracing that happens every so often. This corridor, that feeds the galleries on each side, does not extend the whole length of the building (offices are on one end, and event spaces are around the other), but it still feels long. Therefore the cross bracing provides a rhythm to the walk that is not as relenting as the timber members.
John Hill
One commendable aspect of this hallway of sorts is the way that it’s used as a gallery in its own right; it is not just a corridor for the galleries on each side. The paintings have been mounted at eye level and are small enough that they don’t require a large space for somebody to stand back and choose them in. Folks may stand near the art and allow others walk.
John Hill
On either side of the central corridor/gallery are the chief galleries — eight of these; they occupy anywhere from one to four bays, characterized by the skylights overhead. These galleries are centered on the high point of their gable roofs that run the length of the construction. The gallery shown here is your biggest, putting on display the horizontal brace halfway down the distance. (From the other chambers, the walls pay this tiny bit of structure.)
Even on a rainy day that the galleries have been bathed in natural light, meaning that on sunny days the fluorescent lights operating beneath the timber joists could potentially be turned away. Yet these lights function a design purpose, particularly in the corridor/gallery: Perpendicular to the timber structure, they fortify the building’s long plan and draw the attention into the gable form at the end of the room.
John Hill
About halfway down the stretch of the central spine between galleries is just one large exhibition space that extends from the outer wall around the north into the one on the south east. This could be the equal of the museum’s great room. It is the only space at the museum where one can take in the complete width of the building and its zigzag profile. Some skinny windows draw visitors to either side of the large space.
John Hill
Here is a view inside one of the galleries (two bays), in which the homelike form is the most apparent. Herzog and de Meuron, who have implemented a variety of buildings with pared-down gable types, were affected from the studios of artists residing on Long Island. After visiting the studios of artists such as Jackson Pollock, the architects tried to re-create their attributes — the gable kind and abundant all-natural light (most of it northern mild, but screened southern mild also happens) are their means of linking where the art is exhibited to where it was created.
John Hill
The museum, as should be evident by now, is quite minimalist, though its structural elements (steel columns and beams, wood joists, concrete walls) are exposed. White walls and a polished concrete flooring allow the art come to the fore. My favorite architectural detail is a large wood handle on the black doors (at the entry, café and offices). The deal is accompanied with its own negative on the adjoining wall, a pocket that enables the door to be opened fully without damaging the wall or requiring a door stop that could have run counter to the minimalist aesthetic.