Concrete is tough: tough to renovate, tough to moderate. But the most recent design changes at the Oakland Museum of California have succeeded in sensitively opening up Roche/Dinkeloo’s Brutalist concrete complex from 1969 to better serve the diverse city and region. An earlier renovation, completed in 2010 and led by Mark Cavagnero Associates, subtly addressed many of the museum’s programmatic challenges with the main entry and galleries, and maintained the wonderful, labyrinthian pedestrian experience inside the compound: a Babylon-like garden, originally designed by Dan Kiley with Geraldine Knight Scott. But from the outside, the complex still felt like a 1960s-era urban fortress.
The most recent intervention here, led by Oakland landscape architecture practice Hood Design Studio, in collaboration with Cavagnero’s firm, is more radical than the earlier effort: it alters the original building’s forbidding aesthetic and integrates the institution into the city. To do this, the team created strategic openings in the concrete perimeter. At the northeast corner facing Lake Merritt, they removed a low planter wall and added three portals to the full-height exterior wall. Passersby can now see and stroll into the gardens. An earlier rendering suggested steel and glass pivot doors at the openings. Unfortunately, there are roll-down metal screens instead that are, no doubt, easier to operate and maintain. Another opening, on the building’s 10th Street side, allows access and views to the renovated café, which will be overseen by renowned chef Tanya Holland. This new entry and its ADA-accessible ramp interrupt the original building’s blank facade, a change that Cavagnero has softened by using the same matte steel on the new additions as he used in his earlier renovation.
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