Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art

Scrim wall by James Carpenter.

Project details

• Project Name: Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
• Client: Scottsdale Cultural Council: Frank Jacobsen, president; Robert Knight, director; Ric Alling, project manager
• Project Type: Museum
• Principal Designer/s: Will Bruder
• Design Team: Will Bruder, Rob Gaspard, Tim Christ, Ben Nesbeitt, Saskia Harth
• Contractor/s: Rudow & Berry, Inc-Mark Rudow, structural; Baltes/Valentino Associates, mechanical/electrical; Lighting Dynamics, lighting design; Wardin-Cockriel & Associates, acoustical; Construction Consultants, cost consultant; Howard S. Wright Construction Co., general contractor Steve Martino & Associates Design, landscape architect; Todd & Associates, Inc., landscape architect; Bill Peifer, landscape architect
• Date of completion of project: 1999
• Location of site: Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
• Built-up Area: 18826 s.f

Gallery space.

Words from the Architect

In the desert city of Scottsdale, a beacon of culture has been wrought. The new Gerard L. Cafesjian Pavilion of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art is a complement to the existing Scottsdale Center for the Arts (Benny Gonzales, architect, 1975), achieved through the opportunistic adaptation of the adjacent cineplex, whose five theaters proved to be a logical organization of perfect scale for 18, 500 square feet of versatile temporary exhibition galleries. This challenging civic work offers its community a portal to discovery in the experience of art-a linkage with the vitality coursing through the contemporary art of our time.

From the first beckoning at curbside, the familiar world beyond the envelope begins to fade and an exploration is opened. On this journey the Arizona sun rarely leaves completely, maintaining a living presence of light and place. The existing stucco theater block is now clothed in an elusive eggplant grey chroma likened to the shadows left by fading sunset light on the western ramparts of the McDowell range to the east. This recessively dark, somewhat abstract mass is embraced by an oblong service pod of corrugated and perforated galvanized metal at the west and a softly curved arrival pod of flat-seam galvanized steel on the east, making a gesture of deference to the bullnosed volumes of the existing SCA and shaping gracefully compact urban spaces. These reflective membranes embody both the material heritage of the region and the particular qualities of its sky, changing in time and season, occasionally dissolving into the ether.

Exterior.

Street arrival begins with a luminous scrim by artist James Carpenter. Textured glass sheets shudder around a curve, with joinery of dichroic glass spacers, forming a vibrant civic lantern and wrapping the volume of the sculpture court beyond with a sublime field of energy. Shimmering fritted light and shifting slices of the spectrum play over the dark building mass and earthen floor. A scale and material shift occurs as the scrim slips behind the galvanized wall of the arrival pod. The architectural canyon between this face and the SCA narrows, only to widen as a folded inflection of the metal creates an entry compression beneath a plate aluminum soffit. A mirrored stainless sign backlit with green neon reflects shirts and faces, its mercury glow leading to the first transparent glimpse of the interior. The glazed sweep is breached at entry by an inserted box of Judd-like aluminum assembly containing automated sliding glass doors and a grating underlit with molten orange light.

Entry.

The environments within are a continuum of polished concrete floors, articulated with pronounced sawcuts. Frequent joints at the lobby suggests large pavers whereas minimal jointing in galleries implies megaliths. New ceilings are exposed timber beams and black sound batting, while galleries have a similar attenuation with the archaeology of the exposed wood truss structure of the old cinemas. At the entry the metal exterior wall takes on an undulating yellow interior lining, enfolding admissions, a museum store of stainless and maple, and a future cyber-cafe. Flowing south, the wall extends into the aqueous air of the sculpture court. Movement toward galleries is compressed between radial swells of plain steel (containing storage and service) and translucent backlit glass to announce benefactors' names and current exhibits in colored light. Discreetly placed behind the luminous donor wall a telephone alcove and restrooms continue illusory plays of light and color.

Light patterns.

Fluid space pools at the mouth of the five galleries are graced by a warm plane of clearcoated MDF. Plate steel casings surround the broad thresholds formed by open twelve foot maple doors. Through closed doors, tenuous horizontal slices permit glimpses of the mysteries of art and gallery installations beyond. Gallery environments are neutral grey-white walls without base treatment, seamless and abstract below the dense ceiling matrix. Overhead, the shear silver plane of a mechanical belly dispenses galvanized ducts through the rhythmic wood lattice, and small square galvanized apertures in four of the galleries selectively pierce the blackness with natural light. Their tuned precision allows acceptable light levels to be maintained, and connects these interior worlds to the beyond. These galleries are joined by the subtle drama of a curving west wall which appears flat until seen along its 150 foot length. When galleries 2 & 3 are walled off the result is a passageway along the curve, aptly scaled for photographic media exhibits. The fifth gallery, for special collections, has increased light and a sliver of sky from a north-facing clerestory. In all galleries, fiberglass benches with watery translucency and gentle give afford the needed pause for rest.

Curved wall.

Detailing is tenacious, supporting the totality of the experience in all spaces. Passion with restraint allows a deep focus on the choreography of texture and surface, dynamics and tensions, honed in rigor of joinery and simplicity of geometry. Sensate materiality and abstraction become a functional backdrop-a powerful background building where the diverse reaches of contemporary art can foster insight, imagination, and joy.

Departing, the cityscape and brilliant light return colored now by a lingering aura. Indeed, museums are catalysts of wonder.

Credits

• Text, courtesy of the architect
• Photographs: Bill Timmerman