Herzog & de Meuron is transforming an old Birkenstock warehouse into a design museum dedicated to Charles and Ray Eames. See the renderings
The mid-century modern campus, located in Marin County, will be the future home of the The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity
‘The role of the designer is that of a very good, thoughtful host,’ American designer Charles Eames once said.
Appropriately, a new cultural centre in Novato, California devoted to the legacies of Charles Eames and his wife and creative partner, Ray Eames, will soon be hosting droves of eager guests looking to immerse themselves in the design duo’s pioneering ethos.
Called The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, the new 88.5-acre cultural campus and museum in Marin County, will be a sprawling new destination for art, ideas and nature. Global architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron will be leading the architecture, which will convert a vacant midcentury warehouse into a future-looking cultural institution.
The project will be primarily an adaptive reuse one. The site is defined by an eye-catching midcentury warehouse designed by Polish architect Jan Lubicz-Nycz with celebrated modernist architect John Savage Bolles for the McGraw-Hill publishing company in 1965. Defined by an origami-like concrete roof that, from afar, resembles white mountain peaks, the striking building eventually became a warehouse for Birkenstock, who left the campus in 2020.
Herzog & de Meuron, working alongside San Francisco firm EHDD, will work to preserve the original 185,000 sq ft structure, while transforming it into contemporary exhibition space, with warm, timbre-clad spaces and column-free galleries, with amenities that include a café, museum shop, theatre and maker spaces. A neighbouring former office building on the site will host retreats, talks and other programming. Visitors can expect to encounter design rarities from the Eames archive, in addition to contemporary art exhibitions.
Renowned landscape firm Field Operations, meanwhile, will transform the site with gardens, groves, play spaces and water features, with plantings like herbs, olive trees and other plantings that typify the Northern California landscape.
The project is expected to break ground in 2028, and will open to the public in 2030, Institute officials anticipate.
Llisa Demetrios, a granddaughter of Charles and Ray Eames and a co-founder of the Institute, sees this as a major milestone in the continuation of her family’s legacy. ‘For my grandparents, design was always grounded in curiosity and intention — looking closely, asking questions, embracing constraints, and finding beauty in the practical and the functional. The Museum carries that spirit forward,’ she said in a statement.
‘I hope our Museum campus feels vibrant with that same sense of potential and that people leave feeling inspired not just by what they’ve seen, but by what they might make or discover themselves,’ Demetrios added.
