Architecture: East and West Buildings and Welcome Center

The story of the current North Carolina Museum of Art starts in 1983 with the opening of East Building. Museum Director Valerie Hillings explains: Valerie Hillings: “The East Building was designed by Edward Durell Stone, who was in part chosen for this project because he had designed the state legislature building in downtown Raleigh and also was just an incredibly famous and accomplished architect, and so it reflected both local knowledge and national ambition for the Museum.” “His original vision was amazing in that he had hanging gardens on the roof, sort of like the hanging gardens of Babylon, and he imagined an entire reservoir or a pond. I mean, this incredible water body behind the back of the building.” “He worked on the design for quite a number of years, and as happens with all architectural projects, it seems the budget ran quite beyond what was allocated for it. And so ultimately only a portion of the original design was constructed.” East Building is distinct in that visitors enter on a plaza level and walk down into the galleries. Valerie Hillings: “This is a somewhat uncommon way of developing a building, especially for an art museum.” Valerie Hillings: “There’s not very many buildings in the world where you can create a sort of two-level art viewing experience. And that's something that we're able to do because of how this building is designed. Probably the most prominent feature that you notice in the building are these coffered ceilings, these big squares, these big concrete squares, as you look up into them, and they have this solidity and weight and geometry that to me immediately announces that you're in the modern period.” Valerie Hillings: “The lowest level is at the Park Level, but of course in 1983, the Museum Park was not yet developed. Although the decision to build this building on this property was made in large measure because many of the participants who were involved believe there was a benefit, number one, to having enough space that you could expand—build future buildings, build extensions—but you could also create an experience for people to view art in nature.” And this was part of the vision the original director, William Valentiner, had for the future. Associate Curator Lyle Humphries explains: Lyle Humphries: “He suggested to the founders that we should develop a sculpture garden for the Museum.” Lyle Humphries: “This would've been one of the first sculpture gardens in the US. This was a visionary idea.” As engagement programming grew in East Building, the People’s Collection continued to expand. It became obvious a new building was needed. Lyle Humphries: “Larry Wheeler, director then, persuaded the legislature to appropriate some money for the building of a second building on the campus. In 2010 the light-filled West Building was born.” Valerie Hillings: “This was a very important project that engaged the well-known Tom Pfeiffer, who is originally from South Carolina but is based in New York, to come and imagine what a new building or potentially buildings dedicated to the collection could be.” Valerie Hillings: “And so, taking the very clearly 20th-century language of East Building as a point of departure, but a foil, he brought an incredibly later-20th-, early-21st-century visual language to his design, which was this glass box.” Valerie Hillings: “But by contrast to the East Building, which is cloaked in darkness in many spaces, it was meant to be a sort of palace of light, that there would be opportunities at every moment for light to come in.” This daylighting system helps emphasize and illuminate the colors of the paintings in the building’s 40 galleries. Valerie Hillings: “This new building is really the game changer for the institution because it wins awards for this new architecture.” The most recent architectural addition to the Museum is the Welcome Center, explains architect Matt Griffith: Matt Griffith: “We started in 2017 with a master plan for that whole end of the campus. It was placed on the south end of the Museum Park to activate that end of the Park and engage the county Greenway.” Matt Griffith: “The building is only about 1,300 square feet, but it has a 3,500 square foot roof. It's really like a big umbrella. And most of that extra roof is on the east side. And the first space you arrive in when you come from the Park is that sheltered outdoor space.” Matt Griffith: “It's a welcome center in a very practical sense that meets people’s needs. But it’s also a welcome center to the extent that it allows people to experience the landscape and connect with the place that it’s in.” One of the most distinct features of the Welcome Center is the opening in the gently curved roof. Matt Griffith: “It is meant when you first walk under the roof to reframe your view of the smokestack. So when you walk under the edge of the roof and look up, you actually see it through that opening. It reconnects you with that historic artifact on the campus.” Valerie Hillings: “It’s a reminder of the history of this property, which I think is incredibly important for us to acknowledge that it was not a space that was free and welcoming to all, which is really where we are aiming to go with the Museum’s future. And so we’re going to remember and recognize the past at every turn.”