ASPEN ART MUSEUM PLANS UNVEILED
Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is in Aspen this week to present his design for the proposed new Aspen Art Museum, reports the Aspen Times. Ban’s two-building design would be built on the site of the former Aspen Youth Center, pending voter approval on Aspen’s May 5 ballot. The question authorizes the Aspen City Council to negotiate the sale of the Aspen Youth Center property to the museum. The art museum also has said it would accept a long-term lease.
“My architectural practice is about people’s emotional connection to the buildings they occupy, and I strive for a unified relationship between the structure and the landscape,” Ban has said. His design for the new Aspen Art Museum would be built primarily out of wood and glass. All told, the buildings would comprise thirty thousand square feet and would include six galleries (one of which could be used as a black-box theater), storage, offices, a boardroom, workshop space, a library, a café, a bar, a restaurant, and a loading dock.
The design envisions one long, flat glass exhibition hall supported by woven trusses of sustainably harvested plywood. At the entrance, a covered outdoor sculpture garden leads into a reception-café-bookstore area that features ski-boot storage. The opposite end of the building, facing Rio Grande Park, would feature another outdoor sculpture garden, with views of Red Mountain. “Since natural light is generally healthy in areas where we have circulation and public gatherings, we utilize natural light as much as possible,” writes the architect in the plans. At night, shades will be employed to reduce heat loss and minimize light pollution. Most of the galleries, and the bulk of the structure—roughly 65 percent—would be underground in order to shield the art from natural light. If built, the museum would be the only building in Aspen with five aboveground stories, according to data from the city. The Aspen Art Museum has a model of the proposed new museum on display during its normal business hours.
