Queen’s Museum of Art
Queens, New York
Gabellini Sheppard Associates’ proposal for the Queens Museum of Art conceives of the expanded museum as a vital community space where visitors have meaningful interactions with the institution’s diverse collections, special exhibitions, educational programming and social events. While the architecture of this museum must reflect the context in which it is situated, as well as seduce and inspire the community that erects it as a mirror of its own multifarious histories and aspirations, it must also privilege what is exhibited within. There should be no confusion between the frame and the work of art. Interior spaces must be designed to accommodate and accentuate the aesthetic experience of art from all disciplines and cultures while remaining flexible to respond to the everchanging requirements of contemporary art as it evolves with time.
Though conceived as a container housing a multiuse platform for communal, educational and aesthetic experiences, the new museum must look outward as well as inward. It cannot simply turn away from its local surroundings to shelter what is preserved within. Rather, the new museum must reach out, embrace, and enhance its urban environment. It must function as a sieve, a porous structure that encourages a continuous flow of information and visitors seeking enlightenment, entertainment and social interaction.
