Sure, the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) is one of the nation’s largest and most respected academic museums. The museum was expanded by Allied Works Architecture, a firm founded by Brad Cloepfil. The expansion doubled the program and collection spaces of the original museum while restoring the historic Alumni Memorial Hall.
The new addition, completed in 2009, is known as the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Family Wing. It occupies one of the last buildable sites on the historic campus, completing the primary public façade of the university. The addition extends the Museum to the north in the form of a modified T-shape, connecting with the existing building through a central axis with two radiating arms that project toward the street, on one side, and toward the heart of the University campus on the other.
The design comprises three gallery wings that radiate from a central atrium, defining corresponding exterior rooms as spaces of mediation with the surrounding context. The pairing of native stone with translucent and transparent veils of structure and glass balances the historic character of the university with the desire to create profound new connections between art, the landscape, and the community.
The new architecture is open and immediate, with thousands of students flowing along the “diag,” the main circulation path through campus, moving by and through the galleries, classrooms, and cafes. The building is formed by three cantilevered walls of concrete and limestone. Shells of steel and glass mediate the space of the courtyards, filtering light into the galleries and circulation corridors. These veils of structure frame views to the landscape while animating the courtyards with activity from within.
A three-story “vertical gallery” defines the heart of the building, a periscope of space that draws visitors into the galleries and unifies the collection with unexpected prospects. This design creates an infinite, spinning juxtaposition of spaces—enclosed and exposed, dark and light, introverted and connected to the surrounding city and university.