The revamped Clark will connect to a new exhibition, conference, and visitor’s center designed by Tadao Ando. Work on both structures is due to be finished in 2013. By relocating some existing services into Ando’s building, Selldorf will be able to repurpose 5,000 square feet at the Clark and thereby increase the amount of exhibition space by 40 percent—that building’s overall size, though, will likely remain unchanged at 25,000 square feet.

Of her approach to historic renovations, principal Annabelle Selldorf explains, “The task is to find the right language, an existing vocabulary that allows you to have a presence without insisting on being first in line. That means making the building seem like it was really meant to look this way. We’ll know the difference, and others might not notice. In other words, it will only get better, and it won’t look altogether different.”