Profile

Everson Museum of Art

Syracuse, New York
Completed 1968

Museum building and outdoor plaza
 

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The challenge of this project was how to design a new facility for a small museum with a limited budget and no collection. In solution, gallery space was fragmented into four large boxes interconnected around an atrium sculpture court, each box with a different volume and ceiling height to accept the variety of objects to come. Visitors travel between galleries on small bridges at the corners of the central court, rendering this space and its sculptural concrete stair an exhibition, circulation and orientation hub. The four cantilevered boxes rise up from a 5-foot podium which houses museum services and other spaces designed for public access after the main galleries are closed.

The building is a monolithic structure of poured-in-place concrete mixed with local granite aggregate to complement Syracuse's numerous red sandstone buildings. Vertical surfaces were diagonally bush-hammered to conceal joints and fully expose the granite's pink hue. A sculptural approach to design was adopted because although small, the museum needed strength to withstand its isolation in a downtown urban renewal area. Like a piece of monumental sculpture installed in a plaza, the three-story museum was conceived as the focal point of an anticipated civic and cultural complex.

Major Components

9 variously-sized galleries, 50' square central sculpture court, lower level 300-seat auditorium, classrooms, research library, print room, lounge, meeting room, administrative offices

Awards

I. M. Pei & Associates services

Architectural Design; Interior Design of public spaces; coordination with associate architect on construction documents and construction administration

Associate Architect

Pederson, Hueber, Hares & Glavin

Structural

R.R. Nicolet & Associates, Montreal, Canada

Mechanical / Electrical

Robson & Woese, Inc., Syracuse, NY

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