Orange County Museum of Art Unveils Design for New Building by Morphosis
The grand outdoor stair will join the museum to Argyros Plaza.
Image courtesy Morphosis Architects
View from Argyros Plaza of OCMA’s main entrance, located near Richard Serra’s monumental sculpture “Connector”
Image courtesy Morphosis Architects
Image courtesy Morphosis Architects
Image courtesy Morphosis Architects
The roof terrace will provide space for events and gatherings.
Image courtesy Morphosis Architects
The roof terrace will provide space for for multi-media art and performances, such as Janet Biggs video installation “A Step On the Sun,” shown in this rendering.
Image courtesy Morphosis Architects
Bridges to the educational hall and mezzanine gallery spaces cross overhead in the light-filled entrance lobby atrium.
Image courtesy Morphosis Architects
Model showing extensive glazing of the educational hall, which hovers over the building’s main entrance
Photo © Morphosis Architects
Model showing the building’s main entrance
Photo © Morphosis Architects
Model showing the building’s overall form
Photo © Morphosis Architects
Architects & Firms
After 41 years in its Newport Beach location, the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) is getting a new home. Today, the institution unveiled designs by Morphosis for a building at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California.
The 52,000-square-foot project will include 25,000 square feet of gallery space—roughly 50 percent more than in the museum’s existing building. A wide, curving outdoor stair connected to Segerstrom Center’s Argyros Plaza will lead visitors to the museum’s light-filled lobby atrium. Clad in undulating bands of metal paneling, the building will have significant space for educational programs, performances, and public gatherings (roughly 10,000 square feet), and will include administrative offices, a gift shop, and a café. A roof terrace, equivalent to 70 percent of the project’s footprint, will host a sculpture garden and serve as a venue for installations, open-air film screenings, and other events.
OCMA selected Morphosis for the project after a multi-year planning process and international search. Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne said his firm’s design “evolved from both the ‘outside-in’ and the ‘inside-out,’” calling the building the “final puzzle piece for the campus at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.” The museum is projected to break ground in 2019 and open in its new location in 2021.
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