The Art Newspaper

Chipperfield to design Menil’s master site plan

By Richard Hore. Published online: 25 February 2009

LONDON. Josef Helfenstein, director of the Menil Collection, has announced that UK-based firm David Chipperfield Architects will design the museum’s master site plan.

Located in Houston’s Museum District and inspired by the Museum of Art in Ein Harod, Israel (known for being one of the first modernist museums to make use of natural light), the 12-year-old museum developed from a collaboration between the institution’s founder, Dominique de Menil, and Italian architect Renzo Piano.

Piano produced a building that engages closely with its surroundings, an ethos that will be continued by Chipperfield. The UK firm has worked on many high-profile international projects—including the 2007 RIBA Stirling Prize-winning Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach am Neckar, Germany—and is renowned for incorporating a site’s natural and historical qualities into a design. The plans include the construction of a new drawing institute and study centre, an auditorium, a café, extra space for the museum’s archives, plus additional buildings devoted to the work of individual artists. The master plan, while extensive, aims to preserve the scale, ambience and residential quality of the neighbourhood. Budgeting was only completed last year and planning is ongoing. A public forum on the planning process will be held this month.