Originally published by Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

More than half the funds needed for Phase One of this three-phase, multi-million dollar project have been raised in the past year.

SARASOTA, Fla., Oct. 13, 2018 – Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (Selby Gardens), the world’s only botanical garden dedicated to the study, display and conservation of epiphytic plants, announces that $21.8 million in gifts, more than half of the funds needed to implement the first of the three-phase, multi-million-dollar master site plan has been secured. The fundraising campaign for this undertaking, Innovating a Greener Future- Living Inspiration for a Living Museum: The Campaign for Selby Gardens (The Campaign), will be led by Selby Gardens’ trustees, leadership donors and co-chairs Jean Weidner Goldstein, Cornelia Matson and Pauline Wamsler.

Pauline Wamsler, Vice Chair of the Selby Gardens Board of Trustees says, “I’m elated to co-lead this campaign as Selby Gardens embarks on this exciting new chapter in its history that will solidify Selby Gardens’ legacy as a world-class living museum.”

Of the $42.5 million needed to implement the first phase of the master site plan, $21.8 million has been raised. The goal for funding the overall 10-year Master Plan is $92 million, with $72 million to be directed toward capital costs and the balance to be directed toward endowment and operational needs.

Cornelia Matson, a longtime supporter of Selby Gardens and Sarasota resident said, “Selby Gardens is a special place for our community and its importance in the greater world of plant conservation cannot be overstated. Continued support of this plan assures the Gardens will always exist as an oasis celebrating nature and contribute to the field of plant research.”

The three-phase master site plan will increase the botanical garden’s green space by 50 percent, protect Selby Gardens’ scientific collections, which are the best of its kind in the world, from future sea level rise and allow for expanded educational outreach. Furthermore, upon completion of the master plan, Selby Gardens will have the only botanical garden complex in the world boasting a Net Positive energy rating– meaning the buildings will generate more energy than they consume. The Net Positive Energy rating is awarded by the Living Building Challenge, a green building certification program and sustainable design framework administered by the International Living Futures Institute.

Selby Gardens will become a global model for horticultural display, botanical studies and green building technology, welcoming additional visitors to the more than 200,000 people that currently visit its property in downtown Sarasota, Florida each year.

Jean Weidner Goldstein, co-chair and lead donor said, “This campaign will elevate Selby Gardens at the international level and we are fortunate to have the gardens here in Sarasota where community members and visitors from around the world will be able to experience it.”

Contingent upon fundraising, zoning and permitting, the Gardens aims to break ground on the first phase in late 2019. The first phase of the master plan will create a new arrival experience for visitors with the Jean Goldstein Welcome Center, which will be adjacent to the Steinwachs Family Plant Research Center, a building that will house the Elaine Nicpon Marieb Herbarium and Laboratory and Nathalie McCulloch Research Library.

Another key element of phase one is the Sky Garden, a multi-story building that will include parking, retail space and a destination restaurant. The structure will be designed with extensive plantings that showcase what Selby Gardens’ researchers study and protect. The rooftop restaurant, to be certified as the world’s first Net Positive Restaurant, will be operated by another leadership donor, Michael’s on East. A significant percentage of the restaurant’s proceeds will benefit Selby Gardens. The restaurant will also make use of an adjacent edible garden and a 20,000-square-foot solar panel array, which will provide more than the expected power needs for the entirety of phase one. These building systems will provide educational lessons about water quality, green technology and solar power to visitors thanks to the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation.

A new greenhouse complex, a learning pavilion and improved, more intuitive, circuitous routes throughout the property round out the remaining phases of the plan. Palm Avenue will be converted to a pedestrian-only thoroughfare, showcasing the historic Augusta Block it is known for, which visitors will be able to admire safely with the improved layout.

Additionally, as Selby Gardens prepares for its sustainable future, the institution will responsibly preserve and steward the historical elements of the property including a significant renovation of the Selby House, a recent recipient of local historical designation, thanks to support from the William G. and Marie Selby Foundation and improve the Payne Mansion, home to the Museum of Botany & the Arts since 1979, on the National Register of Historic Places, and in process to receive local historical designation.

“Our plans actively pursue the future in a sustainable manner,” Jennifer Rominiecki, president and chief executive officer said. “The cutting-edge, innovative green building design along with the improvements to the green space and “living buildings” will allow Selby Gardens to become a world-leader in energy efficiencies in public space while also being a garden for all to enjoy.”

The master site plan has been guided by the international landscape architecture studio OLIN, buildings architecture firm Overland Partners and civil engineers Kimley Horn. Willis Smith Construction was recently selected as the construction manager for the project.

FACT SHEET:

BRIEF HISTORY OF SELBY GARDENS

• After the botanical garden was established in the early 1970s following Marie’s passing, the institution grew in small steps, purchasing property along Palm Avenue from nearby neighbors, including the historic Payne Mansion which is home to the Gardens’ Museum of Botany & the Arts
• Marie and William Selby’s original property was just over five acres
• In its more than 40 years of existence, Selby Gardens’ full 15 acres were never adapted for the infrastructure a botanical garden requires
• The Gardens’ plan considers the long-term needs to protect the world’s best scientifically-documented collection of orchids and bromeliads, and also to accommodate the institution’s growth, which in the past two years has shown a 47% increase in admission, a 60% increase in membership, and a 59% increase in overall earned revenues thanks to a new Living Museum operating model

INNOVATING A GREENER FUTURE-LIVING INSPIRATION FOR A LIVING MUSEUM:

THE CAMPAIGN FOR SELBY GARDENS INFORMATION

Living Inspiration for plant research and conservation will do the following:

• Illustrate how all life depends on plants
• Provide a window into our once-hidden research facilities and laboratories
• Spotlight the fascinating field work conducted by our scientists to catalog the earth’s biodiversity
• Reveal more than 125,000 specialized collections of tropical flora in a new, larger herbarium; and nearly 30,000 specimens preserved in fluid, the second largest spirit collection in the world
• Consolidate operational functions at the northeast corner of the property while providing 50% more green space
• Safeguard the world’s best scientifically-documented collections of wild-collected orchids and bromeliads by keeping them out of harm’s way and protected by Category 5 hurricane resistant structures and sea-level rise

Living Inspiration for the Gardens will do the following:

• Enhance strolling gardens and water features that simulate Florida’s terrain and abundant waterways
• Highlight world-class living collections through light-filled glass houses
• Exhibit dramatic plant displays in a dedicated greenhouse gallery
• Provide views of Sarasota Bay throughout the Gardens

Living Inspiration for Learning

• Create a new Learning Pavilion to engage more children and adults and make connections to nature
• Provide visual clues that prompt curiosity about plants and the natural world
• Teach concepts in green urban design
• Expand school programs, family programs and allow for free play and scientific exploration
• Allow for exhibition programs to explore Selby Gardens’ core mission and the links between nature and the arts, connecting the Museum of Botany & the Arts with the entire Gardens

THREE PHASES OF THE MASTER SITE PLAN
Phase One (I)

The first phase of the project, which entails nearly half of the work to be completed, includes the following:

• Jean Goldstein Welcome Center, which will be adjacent to the Steinwachs Family Plant Research Center housing the Elaine Nicpon Marieb Herbarium and Laboratory and Nathalie McCulloch Research Library.
  • The Elaine Nicpon Marieb Herbarium and Laboratory will steward and display the institution’s renowned preserved plant collection that is referenced by botanists worldwide.
  • The Nathalie McCulloch Research Library will showcase an invaluable library collection that includes priceless, rare volumes and hand-colored botanical illustrations dating to the 1700s.
• Included in the collection will be the newly-gifted and highly-regarded orchid collection of Carlyle A. Luer, a founder of Selby Gardens and noted orchidologist. Dr. Luer has described and illustrated more than 3,000 plants for science, leading his contemporary peers.
• A Sky Garden will be as follows:
• Allow the Gardens to double its capacity through the creation of a multi-story visitor services building that will include parking, retail space and a destination restaurant
• Designed with extensive plantings that showcase the living plants Selby Gardens’ researchers study and protect.
• Offer a rooftop restaurant that will be operated by Michael’s on East, a leadership contributor to the campaign, who will give a significant portion of the proceeds to Selby Gardens. The restaurant will be the first in the world to be a Certified Net Positive Energy Restaurant through the use of an adjacent edible garden and a 20,000-square-foot solar panel array, which will provide more than the expected power needs for the entirety of phase one
• Designed with a rainwater harvesting system that will treat and store as much as 500,000 gallons of water to be used for irrigation and to improve the runoff treatment system leading to nearby Hudson Bayou
• Provide educational lessons about water quality, green technology and solar power to visitors thanks to the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation
• Provide a demonstration site for sustainable building technology, including solar energy; storm water collection and reuse; nature-based water purification; living walls and roofs; and urban food gardening

Conservation

• Palm Avenue will be converted to a pedestrian-only thoroughfare, showcasing the historic Augusta Block it is known for, which visitors will be able to admire safely with the improved layout.
• Structures that will be preserved are the Selby House, Payne Mansion and Carriage House and Bayfront event space – Michael’s on the Bay at Selby Gardens. With the removal of failing former residential buildings that house operations and consolidating parking, Selby Gardens will expand by 50 percent, the garden and open space

Phase Two (II) and Three (III)

A new greenhouse complex, Learning Pavilion and improved, more intuitive, circuitous routes throughout the property round out the plan.

GENERAL INFORMATION

• The plan for Selby Gardens has been guided by the international landscape architecture studio OLIN. The firm was contracted in late 2016 and worked with the Gardens’ board of trustees, an advisory committee and staff to reimagine the historical property of Marie Selby.

NET POSITIVE ENERGY RATINGS

• Selby Gardens will be the world’s first in the following certified by the International Living Futures Institute (ILFI):
  • Certified Net Positive Energy Botanical Garden Complex
  • Certified Net Positive Energy Living Community
• Certified Net Positive Energy Restaurant
• Net Positive energy means that the buildings will generate more energy than they consume
• The ILFI considers a “living community” as a community with a significant number of structures that meet their stringent certification process.
• For more information on the ILFI please go to https://living-future.org/contact-us/faq/

The original story can be found here.

Originally published by GB&D

Not long ago, creating a virtual reality rendering of a building was a long, arduous process. Architecture firms had to enlist the help of programmers to create the environments with special software usually used by video game designers. The process would take weeks. By the time the renderings were finished, they would often be out-of-date because the design process had since moved on.

Enter Enscape. Founders Moritz Luck and Thomas Schander wanted to find a way to take VR rendering for architects and make it faster. “We looked at the market and there was nothing there,” Luck says. So they began developing their own software, rolling out a beta version in 2015.

Their product didn’t just make virtual reality faster, though. It made it instantaneous. Enscape is designed to work as an extension of common modeling programs Autodesk Revit, SketchUp, Rhino, and ArchiCAD. Users click one button and, in a few seconds, can see a three-dimensional virtual reality rendering of their designs. “You don’t have to learn a new program,” Luck says. “It’s easy. And it looks good.”

This helps designers communicate better with customers, who probably don’t have much experience looking at floorplans. Luck says it’s especially useful in helping customers envision large, open, multistory spaces like atriums and lobbies. “In 3D, you can grasp it.”

Clever Collaboration

But more than communicating with clients, Enscape helps designers communicate better with one another. Even looking at the same exact blueprints, it’s not uncommon for designers to come away with different mental images. Enscape removes the ambiguity.

San Antonio, Texas–based design firm Overland Partners had worked with other VR before but found the process long and difficult. Then Overland’s Director of Technology Daniel Carpio and BIM Manager Steve Fong stumbled across Enscape. They were impressed but skeptical at first of the company’s claims of real-time renderings, so they downloaded a demo. “We could not believe what we were seeing,” Carpio says. “It was doing everything it said and more.”

The software has changed the way Overland works. “If you go into our office now, everybody has two monitors,” says Overland Principal Bob Shemwell. One will show a design in Revit, while the other will feature an Enscape rendering of that design. “It would be impossible to walk through the office and not see somebody working on Enscape.”

Bringing Design to Life

The renderings really come alive, however, when connected with a virtual reality headset. Not long ago, Shemwell and Ben Rosas, Overland designer, were in a hotel lounge in Florida, gearing up for a presentation on a botanical garden Overland is designing. Rosas was tweaking the renderings as Shemwell wore a headset, offering him feedback. Then a line began to form. “The next thing you know we have the hotel desk clerk and a line of random people we didn’t know that we are walking through the model,” Shemwell says. “It’s technology, but, ultimately, it’s about people.”

Enscape’s ease of use and quality renderings are quickly making the software an industry standard. The program is now used by many of the world’s top architecture firms and the company is growing so fast they’ve had to find new office space. Luck says they hired an architect to design the new space, an old-school guy who was skeptical about the whole 3D thing. Then, as plans were being finalized, the architect realized there was a huge column smack in the middle of the room. “In 3D, it would have been clear from the start,” Luck laughs.

These are five things you can do using Enscape.

The Process

1: Using geolocation, the program allows users to adjust the time of day and year to see how sunlight comes through windows. It’s even possible to factor in shadows from other buildings. It’s not as precise as other methods but provides a quick and easy-to-understand reference. “That’s something you can very easily see in VR that’s very hard to tell in a floorplan in 2D,” Luck says.

2: Enscape releases new versions of its software every three months, often with new features voted on by users on the company’s online forum. Based on this feedback, Luck says the company hopes to roll out virtual reality renderings for smartphones, tablets, and internet browsers. Enscape also plans to allow users to alter design elements from within the virtual reality environment.

3: Using Enscape, architects can spot problems in their plans that wouldn’t otherwise be evident. On a recent project, Overland designers and engineers switched to an Enscape VR session and noticed a duct was poking through a wall. The problem was not evident in Revit, but in VR the error was as plain as day.

4: Although the firm still uses physical models and sketches when presenting projects to customers or other stakeholders, Overland has started to incorporate virtual reality into its promotional materials. At one recent meeting with city leaders, the company used Enscape to create QR codes linked to 360 panoramas of a nearby building so everyone could see how the soon-to-be-built structure would look from various vantage points. The firm plans to place QR codes on fencing surrounding the construction site, so passersby can see what’s coming and get excited.

5: Many users view Enscape renderings on a computer screen but, for a really immersive experience, virtual reality headsets are the way to go. “You have to curate the experience for the client so they don’t feel like they’re going to look foolish,” Shemwell says. When clients feel comfortable, the payoffs are great. Carpio says, “When they take the headset off, there is a sense of euphoria and joy. They finally have a clear understanding of the reality of their project.”

The original story can be found here.

Originally published by The University of Texas at Dallas News Center

The Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center has been awarded LEED Gold status by the United States Green Building Council, becoming the sixth building on The University of Texas at Dallas campus to earn LEED certification.

The alumni center joins the Bioengineering and Sciences Building as the only structures on campus to achieve Gold recognition, the second-highest designation offered. UT Dallas’ Student Services Building earned Platinum certification, the highest LEED certification, in 2010. The Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology Building, Naveen Jindal School of Management Addition and the complex composed of Residence Hall West, Dining Hall West and Rec Center West have earned Silver certifications.

As the world’s premier credentialing system for sustainable construction, LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, recognizes environmentally conscious construction around the globe. Projects are reviewed for their commitment to sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, indoor environmental quality and cutting-edge design.

Achieving LEED certification for new construction is an important symbol of our commitment to sustainability and our duty to future generations.— Kyle Edgington PhD’13, Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations“Our University was founded on the spirit of innovation and in hopes of forging a better tomorrow through education,” said Kyle Edgington PhD’13, vice president for development and alumni relations. “It is important that our campus reflects these values. Achieving LEED certification for new construction is an important symbol of our commitment to sustainability and our duty to future generations.”

Since opening last year, the Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center has hosted more than 200 events and 14,000 guests for galas, conferences, lectures, concerts, weddings and other gatherings. The center also houses office space for the University’s alumni relations and events staff.

As part of its design, the 30,246-square-foot facility incorporates regionally sourced materials and technology that significantly reduce water consumption. A conscious effort was made to blend the center’s indoor and outdoor spaces by situating the building within a grove of live oak trees and making ample use of glass in its design. The resulting mixture of daylight and shade helps mitigate energy use in the facility.

The alumni center was made possible in large part by a $15 million contribution from alumni couple Nancy Gundy Davidson BS’80 and Charles “Chuck” Davidson MS’80. Construction began in 2015, and the center officially opened in September 2017.

Overland Partners, a San Antonio-based architectural firm, worked with the Davidsons to carry out their vision of creating a campus home for the University’s more than 105,000 alumni and a facility that would serve as a gateway for current students to become lifelong members of the UT Dallas community.

“It was a unique privilege to work with UTD as an architect,” said Rick Archer, senior principal architect with Overland Partners. “The campus is as deeply committed to innovation in design as it is in academics. As a result, the Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center is a window into the future. It provides a view of life after graduation for students and shares perspective on where UTD is headed for alumni.

“For the world, it inspires us to imagine a more sustainable, more equitable and more beautiful future. Achieving LEED Gold certification for the building is tangible evidence of this commitment.”

The original story can be found here.

Originally published by the San Antonio Business Journal

The roughly 104-year-old San Antonio Zoo is embarking on multimillion-dollar plan that will provide more of its species with new natural habitats that will give guests greater interaction with those animals, officials have confirmed.

The first planned project is a new rhino exhibit. The larger habitat will cost roughly $1 million to build and will include water elements, tree clusters and a nursery area for infants. The project, which is expected to be completed in early 2019, has been designed to accommodate multiple species and will be positioned next to the Savannah giraffe habitat. Zoo officials said that will enable some animals to roam between the two environments.

Guests will have the ability to experience the animals from a viewing deck.

The zoo also plans to build a new jaguar exhibit that will feature an overhead catwalk that will connect the species’ existing space with a nearby Amazon habitat, where the animals will have access to a riverbed environment.

The new exhibit will reinforce some of the jaguars natural behaviors, including hanging high in a canopy- type setting and exploring a river’s edge. The estimated cost of the project is $2 million, and the goal is to also have that project completed in 2019.

“This is a continuation of our philosophy of constant improvement of our habitats, care and enrichment for our animals and the guest experience,” San Antonio Zoo CEO Tim Morrow said. “These new exhibits will give the animals additional space and create more naturalistic environments that give guests more opportunities to view the animals.”

Since Morrow’s arrival in 2014, the zoo has undergone several changes, including the development of an expanded elephant habitat and a new Savannah area that is home to the park’s giraffes. The zoo has also redesigned its lion habitat in recent years, offering guests closer interaction with the animals through reinforced glass.

The investments are paying off. More than 1.1 million people visited the zoo last year, generating an economic impact north of $108 million.

“With these modifications and renovations, we’ve seen an increase in attendance and memberships,” Morrow said.

Zoo officials are still raising additional money to pay for the latest planned projects.

The original story can be found here.

Originally published by OKPOP 

The original story can be found here.

Originally published by the City of San Antonio

SAN ANTONIO (July 16, 2018) — The Alameda Theater Conservancy (ATC) and Texas Public Radio (TPR) have engaged the team of Overland Partners and Martinez + Johnson Architecture for the full design of the Alameda Theater project. In addition, the ATC released a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for construction management services for the Alameda Theater renovation project. The deadline for submissions is August 6, 2018. The RFQ can be downloaded at www.alamedatheaterconservancy.org.

The Alameda was completed in 1949 as a Mexican-American entertainment venue. The theater featured performances by major artists from throughout the United States, Spain, Mexico and other Latin American countries. At the time, it was the largest movie palace dedicated to Spanish language films and performing arts. In 1994, the City of San Antonio acquired the property, and in 2017, it entered into a long-term lease with the ATC.

The City of San Antonio, in partnership with Bexar County, TPR and La Familia Cortez created a conceptual plan to restore and reopen the historic theater as a multi-media live performing arts and film center featuring the American Latino-Multicultural story. TPR will relocate its headquarters to the newly constructed stage house behind the theater and construct a new black box theater within the TPR facility. The renovation and restoration of the entire complex is expected to take approximately two years.

A Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for Architectural Design Services for the Alameda Theater Complex was issued by the Alameda Theater Conservancy in October 2017, and 12 submittals were received in response to the RFQ. The ATC board members made the selection based on the selection criteria in the RFQ.

The project is funded by the City, County, and TPR. The City and County will provide $9 million each for the capital project through the Houston Street Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone and TPR will provide $5 million. ATC is committed to covering additional construction costs through fundraising efforts.

“I cannot stress enough how critical it is to preserve culturally significant spaces like the Alameda as they help tell the rich story of our city and serve as reminders and inspiration to future generations,” said District 1 City Councilman Roberto C. Treviño. “This joint investment would not be possible without the partnership between the La Familia Cortez, the City, the County, and Texas Public Radio.”

“This attention to detail is critical in preserving our history for future generations,” said Precinct 2 Bexar County Commissioner Paul Elizondo. “Our efforts on the San Pedro Creek project together with the envisioned renovation of this iconic theater will not only preserve our history but tell of the merging of our cultures and how we all came together. I applaud the efforts being extended and look forward to seeing this come to fruition.”

For more information, visit www.alamedatheaterconservancy.org.

For all media inquiries, please contact Kelly Kapaun Saunders, Office: (210) 207-8031
kelly.saunders@sanantonio.gov

The original story can be found here.

Originally published by Texas Architect

The Blanton Museum of Art in Austin has constructed on its grounds an ambiguous building designed by a giant of the contemporary art world, Ellsworth Kelly. Originally conceived in the mid-80s, during the fever pitch of the postmodern era, it is the first and only work of architecture by the late artist. The building, sited away from the two existing museum buildings, is presented as a work of art and part of the Blanton’s permanent collection.

Over the past several decades, museum architecture discourse has been embroiled in an argument as to whether a building should be a white box framing and playing a supporting role to a collection, or whether it should assert its own personality. In an attempt to attract visitors, many museum buildings have become singular points of attraction and branding, rivaling the collections they contain.

Texas has examples of important museum collections that exist within extraordinary buildings. Both the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth by Louis Kahn and The Menil Collection in Houston by Renzo Piano hold an important place as part of the architectural discourse of the late 20th century. They are buildings whose prominence in an architectural context rivals that of the collections they hold — but, for all their importance, these buildings remain separate from the collections and would never be confused with them.

The disciplines of the contemporary art world and that of architecture are largely separate, with few examples of successful crossover; we live in an era in which the technical demands and cultural complexity of the disciplines have led to specialization and separation. Presenting works of architecture as an integral part of a museum or gallery collection is not common practice. Each year, a different architect is invited to design a temporary Serpentine Pavilion in London. The pavilions themselves are what people come to see, but they are nevertheless understood largely within the context of architecture and design and not as contemporary art.

Closer in typology to the Kelly building is Olafur Eliasson’s “Your Rainbow Panorama,” a colorful permanent circular pavilion built on the rooftop of the ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum in Denmark. It has both an exterior and interior identity and the ambiguous program of contemplative experience. While the Eliasson project is a logical extension of his immersive gallery and museum interior installation work, the Kelly building at first might not seem to be clearly related to the artist’s body of work. However, as the Blanton’s supporting show demonstrates, there turn out to be many formal connections to his oeuvre: This first and only building design is an anomaly, and there is a reason for this.

The Kelly building — recently named “Austin” — was not originally intended for a museum or gallery context. It was designed in 1987 as a chapel for a site in California — the private estate of the TV producer Douglas Cramer. Cramer, a collector of contemporary art, was a friend of Kelly’s and had acquired many of his works.

Kelly selected a distillation of elements from early Romanesque and Cistercian architecture, about which — though he subscribed to no Christian faith — he had gained deep knowledge from his years studying churches in France: an exterior narthex, Roman cross plan, nave, east and west transept complete with stained glass windows, and an apse. The building design eventually came to include abstract depictions of the Stations of the Cross hung along the nave and transept walls, as well as a totemic crucifix (just its vertical member) positioned where a chapel would have an altar.

Although he’d never done anything like this before, Kelly’s moves make sense for a couple of reasons. First, he was commissioned specifically to design a chapel, so drawing on historical forms of Christian architecture, which he’d studied, is a logical thing to do. Second, although this technique of collaging simplified forms of historical architecture is not immediately apparent in Kelly’s body of artwork, it was a common design tool for architects during the postmodern period of the mid-80s, when the building was conceived.

Although it was his only building design, Kelly’s body of work does contain many fascinating examples where he has employed architectural techniques and transferred formal elements from the world of architecture to represent them in his art. One example would be “Study for Window” (1949), where he painted an elevation drawing of a window he saw in the Museum of Modern Art in Paris using a technique of transference called orthographic projection — which is a form of transference and one of what Yve-Alain Bois, the author of the Kelly Catalogue Raissoné, calls the artist’s “non-compositional strategies.”

By using orthographic projection, Kelly was able to avoid having to “interpret” the window and represent what he saw in a conventional pictorial way. Instead he is simply projecting it from the world straight to the canvas in the same way an architect uses orthographic projection to accurately represent a window’s proportions and dimensions. In a sense, it’s not a “picture” of the window, but closer to the window itself — in the way a shadow is related to its object. A shadow does not interpret an object; rather, it forms through a mechanical process. The painting is abstracted to the point where its origin is no longer legible. Kelly takes this shadow logic a step further and gives the projection a life of its own in the painting, detached from its original object.

Kelly’s artwork, which often draws on things he sees in the world, is abstracted to the point where the original vision is rarely recognizable. Neither the Stations of the Cross nor the crucifix (totem) within the Kelly building are at once recognizable as in any way related to their traditional counterparts in history. This invites interpretation.

The building itself, however, with all of its forms derived from Christian architecture, clearly reads as a chapel. There are moments of abstraction from certain points of view, but, taken as a whole, it looks like a chapel.

During the 1980s, Kelly worked with an architect in Santa Barbara, California, to produce blueprints of the Cramer chapel. He also started a conversation with fabricators about the sculptures that would adorn the interior (the same fabricators were hired for Austin). And he produced a crude foam-core model, which lived in his upstate New York studio for the next 25 years. But the chapel was never realized.

In 2012, Hiram Butler, a UT alumnus, art historian, collector, and art dealer, became aware of the unbuilt chapel through a chance encounter with Kelly, and offered to try to find it a home in Texas. Butler has a passion for artist-designed building projects, having spearheaded the construction of several, including the Live Oak Friends Meeting House in Houston, which wraps around a Turrell Skyspace at
its center. Butler’s idea for the Meeting House came as a reaction to the negativity he saw coming out of the culture wars — in particular, the attacks on the LGBT community in the early 1990s. He wanted to create a contemplative space open to all people as a counterpoint to the divisiveness he saw in the political landscape.

Butler saw in the Kelly chapel a similar programmatic idea to the Quaker Meeting House — an artist-designed contemplative space open to all. He assembled the team of Overland Partners and Linbeck Group to build the Kelly project. The three had completed the construction of many of Turrell’s Skyspaces, including one at UT Austin.

Butler reached out to several institutions to gauge interest in the Kelly chapel. The Blanton finally took it on in 2013. Director Simone Wicha assumed the difficult work of fundraising and shepherding the $23 million project to realization, an impressive achievement.

For the Blanton, this project is a bold curatorial move: to take the collection outside the confines of its conservative buildings and to present an untested building idea as part of the museum’s collection. After all, among Kelly’s significant achievements, there are no architectural examples one can point at to predict success.

Sited on axis with the wedge-shaped space between the two Blanton buildings, Austin aligns with the eastern museum face. The space between the two existing Blanton museum buildings, which were designed by Kallmann McKinnell & Wood, is a tree-shaded courtyard. The rationale for the wedge-shaped courtyard was that one face of the wedge aligns with the Austin city grid and the other the University of Texas grid.

This assignment of meaning to the grids is difficult to read in the Blanton building pair. The space between the buildings reads as a wedge, but the grid alignments are not legible. The Kelly building is situated at the narrow end of the wedge, so the Blanton buildings create a tapering frame at the top of which is the Kelly building. The wedge-shaped courtyard points to it.

The Kelly building’s cruciform plan and extruded, toy-like form make the skew off the city grid clear. Its obvious partner at the wide end of the wedge is the Texas State Capitol, from which it appears to be turning away. The building’s rotation becomes apparent as one searches for an alignment. The most obvious object in the field is the State Capitol, to which it appears unmistakably misaligned.

What’s apparent from the building exterior is that it employs a formal restraint and scale manipulation familiar from Kelly’s artwork, much of which is subtly three-dimensional. Small increments of space and adjustments are made to the work so that it engages the space it occupies as a whole, often giving it the illusion of buoyancy and spatial depth in what appears at first to be a spatially unassuming graphic artwork. As is the case with architecture, these subtle effects can be perceived only when you’re in front of the actual work and are lost in any representation of it.

For instance, in Kelly’s “Dark Blue Panel” (1985 — about the time Kelly would have been designing the building), a large, roughly 8-ft-by-9-ft almost square dark blue canvas has been manipulated at its edges. The blue evokes a deep night sky, and appears flat, at first. However, the edges of the canvas are slightly concave, and this curved inflection toward the center of the canvas, together with its deep blue hue, call to mind the curvature of the earth and the dome of the sky. The slightly bowed edges activate the canvas spatially from the margins. In the painting, the initial experience is of a field of color, but on more careful examination one becomes aware of a deeper vaulted space employed by the curved edges of the field. The effect is breathtaking, and gives a feeling of space itself, as if one were peering up into a vault.

An interesting parallel between the building and this painting is the repetition of the four vaults in the four cardinal directions as the building’s spatial frame and the four shallow vaults that make the frame of the painting and activate its illusion of space. Approaching the Kelly building from any direction involves a similar shift in scale.

Overland Partners has done a masterful job of detailing the building — of taking Kelly’s conceptual design and working through the challenging job of materializing it. With many cues to the chapel’s identity as a building concealed, such as flashing, vents, and roofing, the structure takes on a scaleless quality from certain points of view, especially seen from the sides or rear, where it resembles an uninterrupted stone surface. As water sheets over the surface, it flows down to concealed gutters at grade, hinting at a secret subterranean life — a very well-concealed basement where all the mechanical equipment lives.

One recent rainy day, the stone roof and walls, which flow seamlessly together, were streaked in rainwater. This interaction with the elements, common to architecture, is rarely seen in any Kelly artwork, hinting at the possibility of the building weathering over time.

On the interior, the colored glass windows have a popular graphic quality whose intensity relies on the abundance of white space provided by the vaults. On an overcast day, the glow from the windows creates a nuanced projection of color onto the surrounding surfaces, which, like the wall weathering on the exterior, varies over time. The artificial lighting (required by code in a public building) is in competition with the subtler effects of the changing natural light but can be controlled. When the lights were turned off, the result was a gradation from the bright candy-colored windows to a darker, obscure condition at the crossing.

There’s an emptiness and darkness to the interior space at its intersection that serves as a necessary counterpoint to the bright graphics of the glass windows: The color does not penetrate to where the apse and totem are located. This north end of the building is therefore a dark anchor point.

The apse, which frames the totem, is a half dome vault without natural light. The interior form of this vault, with its concave white boundless surface, delivers an effect similar to the scalelessness of the exterior. The lack of light makes its partial dome form difficult to read in the dim light, giving it a formlessness and obscurity, a necessary counterpoint to the cheery Instagram-ready windows in the transept and nave.

Comparisons have been drawn to the Rothko Chapel in Houston and the Chapelle du Rosaire, in Vence; however, both these buildings are largely interior spaces conceived by the artist and housed in unremarkable buildings. The Kelly building is a more ambitious type. The artist envisioned it as a whole, with a very specific exterior and interior identity that has changed very little since its inception in the 1980s. This is what makes the addition of Kelly’s building to the University of Texas interesting.

Here, on public university grounds, presenting something unexpected in a museum collection — a building, as a work of art — might get the attention of people who would not typically visit the museum. By crossing over to the messy realm of architecture, with its day-to-day interactions with the world, Austin could act as an accidental point of entry to the realm of contemporary art and become meaningful to people who might have never heard of Ellsworth Kelly, nor explored the Blanton.

The original story can be found here.

Originally published by Texas Architect

Ellsworth Kelly’s monumental “Austin” is a masterclass in nuances of abstraction. He has created an environment layers deep whose simplicity communicates vividly through impeccable craft and deep engagement with cultural touchstones, both shared and personal. Kelly’s final, gracious gift to an Austin that he never visited resonates with the city that is his installation’s namesake and enriches the cultural landscape of a campus to which such expressions are new.

At once a culmination of artistic activity and a recapitulation of practiced themes in new mediums, Austin is born of a lifetime of Kelly’s careful perceptions of the built environment. Where so much of his work sought to embody, not just represent, those small flashes of brilliance he saw in specific moments, he has now given us an architectural object full of potential moments of inspiration.

There are two fundamental components of creativity: the ability to see and the ability to make. Austin reveals Kelly’s immense skill in each and, moreover, models their cyclical integration through architecture.

Austin realizes a concept originally designed for TV producer Douglas Cramer in 1986-87. It underwent five significant changes in its development, three of which were formal modifications made by Kelly in concert with the Blanton and Rick Archer, FAIA, and Overland Partners. What began in California as exterior stucco became stochastically arranged masonry in order to give it the desired permanence in the Central Texas climate. The nave gained 5 feet in length to increase its processional quality. The proportion of the end walls was modified and their height increased by 4 feet. In the final version, the center square of the grid aligns with the springing points of the vault. As much as Austin is above all an Ellsworth Kelly, Overland’s role is commendable for the firm’s deft combination of a light hand and decisive precision that quietly congeals a honed version of the artist’s vision. Less humble or sensitive architects could have irreparably muddled the concept. Overland pulled it off.

The other two changes are intertwined: the location of the building in Austin on the campus of UT in the collection of the Blanton Museum, and the fact that it has no explicitly religious program. That Kelly chose this situation (turning down other options, including the building’s use as a consecrated chapel at a Roman Catholic university) — coupled with the fact that the relocation itself changed only the exterior finish material — together confirm the intentionality of the building’s content. The thoughtful honesty of its integration of art and architecture into a singular work allows it to appeal to a broad spectrum of experience — whether specifically spiritual or generally contemplative — without becoming so vague as to be meaningless.

The building captures instances of exquisite purity, an understated triumph amid the more banal trappings of its institutional neighbors. Particularly on the exterior, careful detailing conceals expected transitions without conceit. The stone coursing, deceptively simple joinery, flush openings, and bespoke components resolve into a clean union of regular Euclidean solids. The effect is startling: accomplishing such a feat in an actual building is rare, and sets the work apart. The overwhelming impact of the three large window pieces moves the space further into the realm of the numinous.

The building’s outside edges trace crisp lines of shadow on the face of the barrel vaults as an analog to the fabricated anticomposition of Kelly’s black-and-white pieces. But here, architecture allows Kelly to transcend the earlier construction of “canvas as object,” as the constructed object becomes both the canvas and the source of an embodied automatic composition.

But there are also occasions where the work succumbs to the banalities of architecture: The apsidal fire exit, the hanging lighting assemblies, and the uneasy coordination between the spectral lighting of the stained glass and the artificial lighting are the fruits of a first attempt. Nonetheless, the place as a whole radiates a lush, full silence and a remarkable exuberance.

Texas now has two artist-led edifices on museum campuses that complicate the relationship between art and architecture. Both are intended as integrated secular modern spaces in which patrons encounter specific instances of abstract art — and yet, perhaps by means of artistic ambition, both tenuously elevate themselves into the realm of spirituality. They invite a similar reaction, but they could not be more different.

In the Rothko Chapel, abstraction is a subjective yet universal language based more on the expression of the artist and experience of the viewer. Its inclusivity comes through the negation

of the specifics of culture in exchange for an invented context that is a blank slate for individual contemplation. In Austin, the abstraction is more distillation and springs from conscious engagement with the specifics of collective culture. Kelly presents us with an object to behold: not an impression or representation or negation of a thing; not a commentary on a thing, but the thing itself.

Perhaps the most telling difference between the two is that the Rothko calls itself a chapel, whereas the Kelly does not. Rothko’s dirge of a building needs the pseudo-sacred moniker to behave as a spiritual place. The Kelly is so intrinsically what it is — so charged with mesmerizing joy — that what we call it is gloriously irrelevant.

The chapel typology of Austin is so robust that the Blanton has been careful to play down any spiritual or religious connection. Given the human need to categorize, however, and in the absence of a stronger candidate, casual references to “the chapel” abound in conversation and in print. Whatever the artist had in mind, you have to imagine that Kelly’s chapel passes the average Longhorn freshman’s “duck test.” (If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck — it’s probably a duck.)

To ignore this fact discounts much of Kelly’s genius. Austin plays on multiple aspects of chapel typology — formal structure, specific precedents, and actual inhabitation — exemplifying and subverting each. There will be no explicit communal religious gatherings here, but the inhabitational typology of “chapel” encompasses a multitude of more individual, contemplative, and devotional activities.

It doesn’t need to be a religious work to participate in the importance of the spiritual in the human experience and the centrality of ritual in culture. Kelly’s Austin bears witness to the particular brilliance embedded in essential threads of Western culture and shares them through abstraction.

Kelly’s work does not fit neatly into the broad narrative of a progressive rejection of objective sources (especially history or tradition) in favor of individualistic expressionism. His is a different kind of abstraction, a non-reductive distillation rooted in actual objects, processes, and precedents. Though compared to them by contemporary critics, his work neither follows from the Neoplasticism of Mondrian nor leads precisely into the abstract expressionism of Rothko or Barnett Newman. Reflecting in 1971 on his transition into more abstract work in Paris in the late 1940s, Kelly explained that he “became more interested in the physical structures of Paris, the stonework of the old bridges, and preferred to study and be influenced by it, rather than contemporary art. The forms found in the vaulting of a cathedral or a splatter of tar on the road seemed more valid and instructive and a more voluptuous experience than either geometric or action pairing.”

Two of the most significant, and perhaps surprising, influences on that trajectory away from figurative painting find their culmination in Austin: a close looking at architecture, from incidental vernaculars to the Romanesque to Le Corbusier; and imagery from a range of religious contexts. His study of mosaics and manuscripts at Paris’ Byzantine Institute seems to have had the most immediate translation into his decreasingly figural paintings on religious subjects: Mother and Child, Lazarus, Baptism, Monstrance, and Mandorla. The recurring mandorla form originated in the facade of Notre-Dame la Grande at Poitiers, which Kelly visited during an Easter vacation in 1949. On the same trip, Kelly visited the Romanesque church of Saint-Pierre de Chauvigny whose chevet comprises a cruciform arrangement of barrel-vaulted apsidal chapels. He also mailed himself a postcard of Sainte-Radegonde, Talmont-sur-Gironde, whose more compact form, interior barrel vaults, and dramatic hilltop perch appear in Kelly’s original concept for the Cramer chapel. He abstracts these sources in a direction that follows and then exceeds that of the later Cistercian abbey churches (notably Le Thoronet) that appear in Kelly’s black-and-white Romanesque Series lithographs of 1973-76.

Sainte-Radegonde and the Chauvigny chevet show that Kelly looked to specific architectural moments for his works, including the building that became Austin, not just the general patterns of a period or conventions of building. This practice is perhaps best illustrated in Kelly’s first “object canvas” from 1949. Originally titled “Black and White Relief,” he later renamed it “Window, Museum of Modern Art, Paris” when the feared stigma from his contemporaries of specificity in abstract art was less of a concern. But to merely identify a reference does not define these works. There is yet Kelly’s uncanny craft to retain the potency of his initial perception and his singular ability to see substance. The tumbling squares window excised from the Chartres north rose window provides a perfect example. As many times as I had studied Chartres, I had never seen that pattern. And in addition to the exquisite glass of the window in Austin, it, in turn, enlivens Chartres anew.

Without this intense engagement of the specifics of culture, it would be easy to dismiss the content of the building as pure abstraction or a solely secular experience of the ultimate statement of an artist’s individual vision. One might explain away the cruciform barrel vaults; the totem’s anthropomorphic character and placement corresponding to the corporal altar; and the long association with stained glass in Western religious architecture. But the content of the 14 marble panels that constitute the Stations of the Cross, Austin’s most subtle yet most narrative component, are undeniably rooted in a particular devotion with its idiosyncratic number, sequence, and form.

Kelly treats the stations as an “already made,” retains their substance, and provides new insight into an existing devotion, while at the same time not precluding or detracting from other kinds of uses. Compare these to Barnett Newman’s raw monochromatic Stations, which began as a personally expressive work around sorrow whose title emerged through a subjective process. Newman’s are canvases, intended for a gallery setting, and only thematically linked to the Stations, whereas Kelly’s are objects inhabiting an integrated environment, one whose architectonic quality invites more than passive contemplation.

Kelly’s work is of such quality that it speaks instantly but rewards more in-depth investigation. It is the kind of work that justifies and sustains repeated visits. We await in eager anticipation the roles the building will play in the life of the university community and in the cultural life of the city of Austin.

Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin works as a generic “chapel of light” and “space for contemplation,” but in its layered particularities, it far transcends the superficial spirituality of so many similarly-described architectural pavilions. It is a fitting monument to a great American artist, but in its synthesis of and participation in global and local artistic culture, it is far more than a vanity project. The work as a whole represents a culmination of Kelly’s oeuvre, but it also shows his continual innovation, with the fresh expression of the deep motifs running through that work into new materials and mediums. It is a building to contain art, but as it embodies Kelly’s lifelong passion for the built environment as a source of inspiration, it becomes an immediate, perhaps inevitable, masterpiece.

The original story can be found here.