 The Seattle Art Museum is one of the foremost cultural institutions in the Pacific Northwest. A significant increase in the museum`s holdings and a visionary public-private partnership were the catalysts for the construction of a new 16-story building. The 450,000sf expansion and renovation project allows SAM to grow incrementally, converting lease space to new exhibition galleries over a period of 20 years. The new building sits on First Avenue overlooking Elliott Bay. It is primarily a western prospect, with views extending to the Olympic Range. Four exterior &ldquo;shells&rdquo; form the boundary of the building and site, each responding to a particular orientation. Their surfaces of flush glass, fixed and operable stainless steel panels engage varied light &ndash; filtering, reflecting, and diffusing it into the exhibition spaces. At the street, the museum is open and transparent, providing glimpses into the galleries from the sidewalk below. Rising through the lobby, the exhibition spaces are defined by parallel structural walls that filter light and provide views deep into the center of the block. These walls create rooms of varied proportion and height, providing a broad spatial palette for the curators and the collection. The museum is ordered by an internal landscape of double-height galleries that intersect exhibition floors above, drawing the eye further up into the heart of the museum. The expansion is an open field for vertical growth, both lens and filter for a shifting series of relationships with art and landscape. 

 the Architect    Allied Works Architecture

Seattle Art Museum 

Created the iconic open-air steel "ghost structures" outlining Benjamin Franklin's long-demolished home and print shop.Built the original underground exhibition space beneath the courtyard.

Redesigned the courtyard-level entrance pavilion, replacing the old canvas canopy framework with steel and frit-patterned glass glazing. Revamped the interior galleries and improved accessibility down to the underground exhibit zones (with exhibit design by Casson Mann)

Explore Benjamin Franklin's life and legacy through his character traits. The exhibit area is divided into five "rooms" with each room focusing on a particular trait: ardent and dutiful, ambitious and rebellious, motivated to improve, curious and full of wonder, and strategic and persuasive. There are videos, touch screen interactives, mechanical interactives, and artifacts in each "room." An additional area called the "Library" presents a video with excerpts from Franklin's Autobiography.

View of the new Benjamin Franklin Museum and "ghost" of Franklin's house.

View of Benjamin Franklin Court and the Benjamin Franklin Museum. The steel outline, or the "ghost house" indicates the location of Franklin's home, which was torn down by his grandchildren in 1812.&nbsp;

Naturally charming and witty, Franklin drew people to him wherever he lived. He was dutiful and affectionate toward his family but it was his close friends both here and in Europe to whom he expressed his most ardent devotion.

Visitors exploring the museum exhibit: “A thirst for knowledge.” From the time he was a boy to his very last days, Franklin delighted in learning new things. He closely observed the natural world around him, frequently sharing his findings and sense of discovery with others. His curiosity and scientific explorations mirrored the ideals of the Enlightenment

Franklin’s passion for chess also cultivated important personal traits, such as strategic thinking and patience, that helped him become an effective negotiator and diplomat. Visitors will learn about Franklin’s role in securing French support for the American Revolution and his skill at political problem-solving.

By way of computer animation, visitors can eavesdrop on Franklin in a room intended to be a recreation of his library, as he sits at his desk writing his autobiography, and hear five stories that were included in the final version.

Benjamin Franklin Museum

Conceived as an “open-air” museum by Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, this plaza is the only site in Philadelphia dedicated to interpreting the life and ideas of the city’s founder, William Penn. Commissioned by the Friends of Independence Mall National Historical Park and opened in 1982, the design transforms the plaza into a three-dimensional map of Penn’s original 1683 plan for Philadelphia.A giant representation of the city’s historic grid is laid out across a marble ground plane, incorporating miniature versions of landmarks and features associated with Penn, including the statue atop City Hall and a model of his original slate-roofed house. Four trees mark the locations of the public squares included in Penn’s original utopian plan. Two perimeter walls frame the plaza and carry a chronological narrative tracing Penn’s life and ideas, while his farewell address to Philadelphia is engraved on the base of the statue model.Like Venturi and Scott Brown’s Franklin Court in Philadelphia and Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., the project transforms urban space into an interpretive landscape. Rather than simply commemorating Penn with a monument, the design invites visitors to experience his vision for Philadelphia through architecture, mapping, text, and symbolic models.

Welcome Park

The present building is the third site to house the National Gallery. Only the façade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time, as the building has been expanded piecemeal throughout its history. Wilkins's building was often criticised for the perceived weaknesses of its design and for its lack of space; the latter problem led to the establishment of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897

Technical lead for the design team reconfiguring the entry and circulation sequence for the museum

National Gallery, London

This soaring Gothic structure houses the famous 11,000 pipe Curtis Pipe Organ. Its massive interior, which seats 1,260, is the setting for musical and dance performances, screenings, lectures, and rehearsal rooms.The survival of the academic Gothic into the late 1920s demonstrated the power of tradition and the force of Henry Adams exposition of medieval civilization in Mont Saint Michel and Chartres on Horace Trumbauer, a Philadelphia architect favored by some members of the city's emerging wealthy class in the early 20th century, and a national representative of the Wideners and the Dukes.

Irvine Auditorium

The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art is focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present. Two museums--one in La Jolla and a satellite museum in downtown San Diego--hold the collection.

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla

Formerly extension of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

Charged to construct the "best college library in America", famed architect Frank Furness developed the design for this library with consultation from Melvil Dewey (inventor of the Dewey Decimal System) and Harvard librarian Justin Winsor. A step into the interior reveals a grand staircase, lofty reading rooms and more impressive architectural details.

The Duhring Wing was built at the south end of the stacks, making their designed expansion impossible.

Architect Robert Rodes McGoodwin drew up plans to cloak the entire building in sedate Collegiate Gothic brick and stone. The first step toward this was the 1931 addition of a reading room facing College Green (now the Arthur Ross Gallery) that masked the iron-and-glass stacks.Almost perversely, McGoodwin's incongruous Collegiate Gothic addition was dedicated as a memorial to Horace Howard Furness, however H.H Furness's Shakespeare home library home was housed in the addition before being moved to Van Pelt Library. A garden with plants found in Shakespeare's works was grown in front of the addition.

University of Pennslyvania recorder George E. Nitzsche included in his 1914 book “University of Pennsylvania: Its History, Traditions, Buildings and Memorials” a list of “mottoes on the windows and elsewhere in the library,” totaling more than 80, mostly in English, but some in Latin and Greek and one in cuneiform. Many quotes are from works of Shakespeare, from “Hamlet” to “Henry V” to “As You Like It” and beyond. After the library’s dedication in 1891, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported that H.H. Furness said the mottos were “not to teach the rustic moralist how to die, but to teach the learned student how to live.”

illustration in Proceedings at the Opening of the University of Pennsylvania Library (Philadelphia: February 7, 1891), opposite page 32.

Anne and Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library

Built as a students' club house and the first student union in America, this English Collegiate building was designed by two students from the University's Department of Architecture (William C. Hays and Milton B. Medary). The implementation of the design was overseen by Philadelphia architect Frank Miles Day.&nbsp;

The most recent restoration of the building, completed in 1999. It once housed a bowling alley, swimming pool, theater and gymnasium. Today, it offers meeting rooms, open student lounge and study areas and several food outlets.

Houston Hall

Memorial Hall was conceived by Harvard alumni in memory of Harvard affiliates who fell during the Civil War. The architects were invited in 1865. In 1870, the building was named Memorial Hall and the cornerstone was laid. The building went into use in 1874, and the tower was finally completed in 1877. There are many stained-glass windows inside the Memorial Hall complex, including four by John La Farge. The windows were installed between 1879 and 1902.

Today, Memorial Hall is used for large lecture classes, performances for the Harvard community and beyond, and as the Freshman dining hall. Visitors cannot enter the dining hall. In the basement is the Queenshead Pub, Harvard's student pub.

Dedicated in 1874, Alumni Hall was used as a dining commons until it closed in 1926. After a series of large-scale renovations funded by Walter Annenberg, it was renamed Annenberg Hall in 1996, and now serves as the freshman dining hall.

Designed primarily as an academic lecture hall for Harvard College, Sanders Theatre opened to student use in 1876. Throughout its history, Sanders has also hosted many musical and theatrical student groups on campus.

Memorial Hall

The Project Principal shares the history of Memorial Hall and the process of the renovation.

Robert Venturi first established early practice roots (originally as Venturi, Cope and Lippincott).

Partnered with John Rauch to form Venturi and Rauch.

Renamed to Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown. Denise Scott Brown joined the firm in 1967, becoming an official name partner later.

Renamed Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates after Rauch departed.

&nbsp;Transitioned into VSBA Architects &amp; Planners following Venturi and Scott Brown's retirement.

VSBA Architects &amp; Planners is the next generation of Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates. VSBA Architects &amp; Planners was founded in 2012 after the retirement of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. Established in 1958 as Venturi, Cope and Lippincott and formerly known as Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown

Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates

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