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View from MLK Jr. Blvd. looking north toward the Faulkner Gateway and
Austin by Ellsworth Kelly, with the Edgar A. Smith Building on left and the Mari and James A. Michener Gallery Building on right North view through the Faulkner Gateway toward Ellsworth Kelly’s
Austin. Left: Edgar A. Smith Bldg.; right: Mari & James A. Michener Gallery Bldg. (Courtesy of Blanton Museum of Art)
Being inside the Blanton Museum is a great experience.
Getting inside the Blanton is, well, less of one.
If you re like most museum visitors, you come out of the University of Texas Brazos garage – your closest parking option – only to face the Blanton s backside, distinguished chiefly by its loading dock. So you have to walk around the building to reach the entrance. Going left puts you on a narrow sidewalk between whizzing traffic on MLK Jr. Boulevard and the campus unwelcoming southern wall. Going right offers a more pastoral setting and an enticing view of Ellsworth Kelly
Centered on the Moody Patio, a gathering space between the existing structures, the proposal generates “
15 elegant, petal-shaped structures, creating a shade canopy at the southern edge of the Blanton’s campus”. Inspired by the initial vault-design of the museum, the addition will create a visual identity for Blanton. Changing the experience of visitors, the new architectural elements will highlight accesses. In addition, “
to amplify the Blanton’s popular and innovative music programming, the design incorporates two raised platforms on the Moody Patio to stage live music and other performances”.
The Blanton holds a prominent place at the intersection of the new Texas Capitol Complex, and it also serves as the gateway to the university campus. Our inventive landscape and reimagined building entrances fulfill that promise. Snøhetta’s design expands the museum’s world-class art collection beyond the museum’s galleries and creates a highly visible public place of
University of Texas officials said the project will be led by international design firm Snøhetta. Author: KVUE Staff Updated: 10:24 PM CST January 12, 2021
University officials announced a comprehensive grounds redesign to the museum campus, which is approximately 200,000 square feet and contains two buildings.
“I believe that landscape has the power to transform a community, very much in the way that great art can transform our hearts and minds,” said Blanton Museum director Simone Wicha. “An undertaking of this scale would not be possible without our visionary partners, including the Snøhetta team, Carmen Herrera, the Moody Foundation and our other generous donors. The new grounds initiative will transform the Blanton, opening the museum into the city, inviting people in not just to see great art, but also to linger, gather and be inspired before and after each visit. We want to create a destination – a beloved destination – for f
Austin 360
The Blanton Museum of Art has revealed a dramatic plan to transform the grounds around its three buildings on the University of Texas campus at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and North Congress Avenue.
What looks in renderings like a garden of 15 gigantic, perforated flowers was designed by the award-winning firm Snøhetta, whose New York-based leaders are Texans and is also based in Oslo, Norway.
As part of the projected $35 million project, Cuban American abstract painter Carmen Herrera will add a signature mural to what is becoming a grand southern gateway to the campus that directly faces the state Capitol and the major Capitol Complex expansion now underway along Congress.