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New art museum captures Roanoke’s sense of place
by Otesa
Middleton Miles
for Virginia Business
October 2006
People who
love the mountains will feel right at home at the new
Art Museum of Western Virginia. Designed
to mirror the area’s natural landscape, the project
in downtown Roanoke aims not only to display art, but
to be art — a visual symbol of the mountain heritage
of Southwest Virginia.
Still in the early stages of construction, the three-level
structure will be made of stainless steel, patinated
zinc, and clear and frosted glass. The materials
will reflect the nearby mountain ranges on the building’s
surface and mimic their peaks on the façade.
Los Angeles-based architect Randall Stout sees the
building as a messenger, welcoming patrons to the
region’s
distinctive sense of place. “I was completely taken
by the Shenandoah Valley and the surrounding Appalachian
Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains. I came up with
several metaphors for the environment that were the real
inspiration for the building,” says Stout, who
won the commission to design the museum in a competition.
To bring the inspiration to life, he
designed undulating roofs to depict the mountainous scenery.
Inside,
tall vertical spaces will be carved out to give
visitors a sense of being inside a mountain river
gorge. To
pay
homage to the region’s caverns, the building will
use Hokie stone or Appalachian Dolomite limestone — quarried
in nearby Blacksburg — in the lobby, café and
other public areas. A large atrium, with a 70-foot ceiling,
will serve as a public meeting space. “I wanted
to create a facility that communicated to the public
the new range of programs it will offer and the reinvigorated
attitude to reach out to the community and have a life-long
experience with the visual arts,” says
Stout.
The 81,000-square-foot, contemporary building
will quadruple the size of the current museum
and offer
16,000 square
feet of gallery space plus educational spaces
and a gift shop. In addition, high-speed network
connections
will
allow for distance learning in the surrounding
counties.
Stout chose to use the museum’s existing location
as inspiration rather than an obstacle. The building
is in a flood plain between a historic building and railroad
tracks. “We raised the footprint of the building
to be out of the flood zone — the north, south,
east and west elevations of the building are all different,” he
says.
Scheduled to open in fall 2008, the $66 million
project will replace downtown’s existing museum. Dr. Ed
Murphy, president of the museum’s board of trustees
and CEO of Carilion Health System, says the new museum
should encourage more downtown redevelopment and may
create as many as 475 new jobs.
Project: Art Museum of Western Virginia
Owner: Art Museum of Western Virginia
Cost: $66 million
Architect: Randall Stout Architects Inc.
General contractor: Centex Construction
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