MAM selects architects to design new museum

September, 2006At a public meeting celebrated on September 14th, 2006, the Miami Art Museum’s Architect Selection Panel voted unanimously to engage the celebrated firm of Herzog & de Meuron as designers of the Museum’s new and expanded facility, planned for Museum Park. Panel members included MAM Board Chair Aaron Podhurst; trustees Mireille Chancy-Gonzalez, Rafael Miyar, and Gloria Scharlin; and Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs Director Michael Spring. Scheduled to open in late 2010, the new building, estimated at 125,000 square feet in size, will occupy four acres of land in Museum Park (formerly called Bicentennial Park). Along with the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium, which is also relocating to the Park, the new MAM is a central element of the City of Miami’s master plan for the refurbishment and renovation of the Park and the re-vitalization of Miami’s downtown area. Based in Basel, Switzerland, and with projects across Europe, in North America, and in Asia, Herzog & de Meuron is known for designs that are at once highly inventive and sensitive to the site, geography, and culture of the region for which the building is planned. Among their most widely recognized museum projects are the transformation of a power plant into Tate Modern, in London (2000); the de Young Museum, in San Francisco (2005); and the expansion of the Walker Art Center, in Minneapolis (2005). In 2001, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron were awarded the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize for their body of work. The facility to be designed by Herzog & de Meuron will be on the north side of Museum Park, overlooking Biscayne Bay. It will include 32,000 square feet of galleries for the display of the permanent collection and special exhibitions; an educational complex with a library, auditorium, classrooms, and workshop space; and such amenities as a cafe and store. Plans also include an outdoor sculpture garden, which will be free and open to the public, within Museum Park and contiguous with the new Museum. For more information, please call: 305.375.3000