Monolithic New York museum pavilion features "perfect cube" gallery
By Ben Dreith
Jul. 12, 2023
Spanish architects Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo have collaborated to create the Robert Olnick Pavilion for the Magazzino Italian Art museum in Cold Spring, New York.
The concrete-clad pavilion is the second structure on the campus of the museum, which is dedicated to promoting Italian art and design in the United States.
Quismondo, who designed the first building on the site, worked with Baeza to expand the gallery capabilities of the institution.
Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo designed the Robert Olnick Pavilion in New York
The pavilion is partially submerged into a sloping green hill, with entrances on either side of the building at the top and bottom of the grade.
It has a monolithic concrete facade with little detail, punctuated at points by simple square windows. At the top of the hill, the structure has a vertical element that gives the whole building an L shape.
Within this space a double-height gallery was conceived of as an isotropic room that is a "perfect cube", according to the architects. Windows were placed at each corner to create a sundial effect when light from outside enters.
The architects included a perfectly cubic room that functions like a sundial with strategically placed windows
"We built the Robert Olnick Pavilion like a poem: a white cube traversed by light," said Baeza.
"The main space will embody the beauty of the artwork it exhibits, and with an isotropic design that carves an opening into every corner, each detail will be touched by magnificent sunlight."
"Not unlike the excitement of birth, it is with great anticipation that we deliver this second building to the museum."
The interior features polished concrete floors and white ceilings
The building has two floors and a mezzanine, with a long first floor that stretches the length of the structure and holds a variety of programming spaces, terminating at a glass end wall that overlooks a sunken courtyard.
The primary floor holds the two main galleries, one in the long end of the building and another housed in the double-space element created by the vertical element at the top of the grade.
"The pavilion has a humble layout that highlights industrial materials such as concrete to facilitate a conceptually strong and aesthetically neutral environment to compliment the postwar and contemporary Italian art and design it will exhibit," said the museum.
Between the two gallery spaces is a mezzanine level that is accessed from the door at the top of the slope. This space holds a cafe with a seating area that extends outdoors.
All the interiors are stark white, in line with the minimalism of the facade. Polished concrete flooring and seamless overhead lights were designed to add to the smoothness of the interior.
The museum plans to launch its first exhibitions in the fall, featuring the work of Italian designers and artists such as painter Mario Schifano and architect Carlo Scarpa.
Baeza and Quismondo have been working with museum founders Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu for more than twenty years, and designed the pair's home, which was Baeza's first US project, in 2003.
Other projects by Baeza include a sports complex in Madrid designed to be a "box of light" and a white-walled minimalist house in Monterrey, Mexico.
Photo credits: Marco Anelli
Crisp concrete forms house galleries for radical Italian art in Upstate New York
By Jenna McKnight
Mar. 21, 2018
Architect Miguel Quismondo has transformed a 1960s warehouse in the Hudson River Valley and created a new concrete addition to house a collection of work from the Italian Arte Povera, or "Poor Art", movement.
Taking its name from the Italian word for "warehouse", Magazzino is located in Cold Spring – a village in the Hudson Valley situated about an hour outside of Manhattan.
The project entailed the full renovation of an 11,000-square-foot warehouse (1,022 square metres), along with the creation of a new building encompassing 14,000 square feet (1,300 square metres).
The project was commissioned by Olnick Spanu, an organisation led by husband-and-wife collectors Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu. Spain-born and New York-based architect Miguel Quismondo, who serves as the organisation's director of architecture and construction, oversaw the design.
The gallery presents work by members of Arte Povera, or "Poor Art" – a radical art movement that emerged in Italy in the 1960s. The artists were known for using mundane materials such as rags and tree branches, which influenced the building's design.
"While the artists worked with elements considered to be poor, low-quality or readily available, we wanted to pursue this philosophy by using simple components and building techniques," the architect said.
The existing steel-and-concrete building, which is L-shaped in plan, was constructed in 1964 to serve as a distribution centre for dairy products. For the inner side of the "L", the team created a courtyard and then placed the rectangular addition alongside it. The old and new buildings are linked by glass corridors, which help reinforce a sense of "lightness".
"The juxtaposition of the two volumes makes the central courtyard became a virtual room, an extension of the lobby, while the reflecting pool that regularises its geometry facilitates the transition between the existing building and the addition," the architect said.
The addition rises higher than the older building, enabling it to accommodate larger pieces of art. For the exterior walls, the team used concrete with a weathered appearance.
"The 'in situ' formwork concrete wall, shaped with phenol-treated wood panels, makes up the skin of the new container," the architect explained. "The roof cover is solved by using a simple structure involving metal gable trusses."
Within the building, quality of light was a central concern. Skylights in the repurposed warehouse bring in "specific, solid light", while the new addition offers light that is "uniform and faint". Artificial track lighting was also integrated into the galleries.
The interior circulation is meant to feel fluid and comfortable, with certain areas offering a view of the outdoors. "The flow was reduced to a simple circle in order to make the visitors follow an intuitive sequence of rooms," the architect said. "To keep guests from being weighed down by the burst of art, the spaces open to the exterior to help people rest their eyes throughout the tour."
A number of art galleries and museums in the US are housed in old industrial buildings. Others include the SO-IL designed Tina Kim Gallery in Manhattan, which occupies a century-old structure in the Chelsea neighbourhood, and a contemporary art gallery in New Mexico designed by SHoP Architects, housed in a former beer warehouse.
Photo credits: Javier Callejas
