Architect Daniel Libeskind revealed his plans for a new modern art center in Vilnius, Lithuania.
The 3,100-sm museum will house works created from 1960 through the present day, which includes 4,000 paintings, photographs, and videos from Viktoras Butkus’ collection. Butkus and Danguole Butkiene are co-founders of the Modern Art Center (MAC) Vilnius.
The building, made of two volumetric forms, is clad in a white concrete exterior façade. It has an interior courtyard, and a staircase that leads to a garden that is connected to the piazza at street level.
The building has floor-to-ceiling glazing to maximize daylighting. A five-meter cantilever will provide shading during the summer months.
The museum’s galleries have an open-floor plan, and 1,000 sm of exhibition space will hold permanent and temporary displays.
“The Modern Art Center not only creates a home for this extraordinary collection, but the design connects the galleries to the street and the urban fabric, giving the citizens of Vilnius a new cultural center infused with public space,” Libeskind said in a statement.
Plans include a cafe, bookstore, auditorium, storage, and rooms for offices and educational use. Construction will begin in 2017, and the center is expected to be completed by early 2019.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Museum celebrates African-American heritage
The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture recently completed construction on the Wells Fargo Cultural Campus in Charlotte, N.C. Designed by the Freelon Group, Durham, N.C., with Batson-Cook's Atlanta office as project manager, the $18.8 million project achieved nearly 100% minority participation.
| Aug 11, 2010
Design for Miami Art Museum triples gallery space
Herzog & de Meuron has completed design development for the Miami Art Museum’s new complex, which will anchor the city’s 29-acre Museum Park, overlooking Biscayne Bay. At 120,000 sf with 32,000 sf of gallery space, the three-story museum will be three times larger than the current facility.
| Aug 11, 2010
Thom Mayne unveils ‘floating cube’ design for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science
Calling it a “living educational tool featuring architecture inspired by nature and science,” Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne unveiled the schematic designs and building model for the Perot Museum of Nature & Science at Victory Park in Dallas. The $185 million, 180,000-sf structure is 170 feet tall—equivalent to approximately 14 stories—and is conceived as a large...
| Aug 11, 2010
Piano's 'Flying Carpet'
Italian architect Renzo Piano refers to his $294 million, 264,000-sf Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago as a “temple of light.” That's all well and good, but how did Piano and the engineers from London-based Arup create an almost entirely naturally lit interior while still protecting the priceless works of art in the Institute's third-floor galleries from dangerous ultravio...
| Aug 11, 2010
The Art of Reconstruction
The Old Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C., completed in 1867, houses two Smithsonian Institution museums—the National Portrait Gallery and the American Art Museum. Collections include portraits of all U.S. presidents, along with paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings of numerous historic figures from American history, and the works of more than 7,000 American artists.
| Aug 11, 2010
Silver Award: Please Touch Museum at Memorial Hall Philadelphia, Pa.
Built in 1875 to serve as the art gallery for the Centennial International Exhibition in Fairmount Park, Memorial Hall stands as one of the great civic structures in Philadelphia. The neoclassical building, designed by Fairmount Park Commission engineer Hermann J. Schwarzmann, was one of the first buildings in America to be designed according to the principles of the Beaux Arts movement.
