When a historic flood damaged the University of Iowa Museum of Art in 2008, the institution’s prodigious collection was placed in storage or loaned to other institutions while a new, safer home for the valuable works could be designed and built. Now, 14 years after the flood, the collection of 1,700 pieces of art is once again under one roof with the opening in August of the Stanley Museum of Art on the university’s Iowa City campus. The Des Moines office of architecture firm BNIM has created a stylish new building—elevated enough to help keep the contents dry should the Iowa River (located about a block west) jump its banks again—yet one that feels connected to the surrounding campus.
During the 2008 flood, workers and volunteers scurried to save the holdings—including seminal 20th-century pieces and an impressive collection of African art—from the rising waters, although about 200 pieces ended up requiring conservation. The old museum, designed by Harrison & Abramovitz (1969) and located on the west side of the Iowa River just north of the Stanley, though structurally sound, was deemed unsuitable for exhibiting art.
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