Ten years after a new home for the Barnes Foundation, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, opened on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, another cultural attraction under the aegis of the Barnes is slated to be built across the street. This time the focus will be the great 20th-century American sculptor Alexander Calder, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1898, and the architects are Herzog & de Meuron, the Swiss firm that excels at creating compelling spaces for art. Among its U.S. museums are the Parrish on Long Island, the de Young in San Francisco, and the Perez Art Museum Miami—each one an entirely original response to site and program.
Phoning from Basel, Jacques Herzog said he took on the role of project architect in order to explore the possibilities posed by Calder’s work. He said there was no set program—other than devising a variety of ways for people to appreciate sculptures, stabiles, mobiles, paintings, and works on paper. "Nobody told us what to do," he says. For that reason, "it was more like an art project—not that the building is a work of art. But I had to go deeper into the project, bit by bit, to find out what the project was. That’s why I involved myself so closely."
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