Preview: the Bay Area gears up for the new BAMPFA by Diller Scofidio + Renfro
![A street level view of the new museum from outside. The rectangular building has three floors with 9 columns of windows that are illuminated. To the right the building continues back with an arch-style roof.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/rrachQfu4sqc9TveUzJXtN-415-80.jpeg)
While there's still four months to go until its official grand opening in January, the new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive [BAMPFA] is shaping up to be a blockbuster addition to the Bay Area's active creative scene.
In an inspired case of adaptive reuse, Diller Scofidio + Renfro have transformed a 1930s-era former printing plant into an expansive, multifaceted ode to multimedia. What once was a kind of 'bunker,' says BAMPFA Director Larry Rinder, is now a fully fenestrated, natural-light-filled haven that achieves the dual goals of accessibility and transparency, guided by a serene sense of flow and interplay from the exterior, and throughout the interior. Coupled with the bold red and grey highlights, it achieves an almost 2001: A Space Odyssey-like effect.
The existing buildings included a disused factory and adjacent office. They were largely intact, but beset by seismic structural issues - a major factor in the earthquake-prone Bay Area - and abandoned for years in the centre of the bustling downtown college city. Diller Scofidio + Renfro kept the original structures, complete with Art Deco inflections and a trio of skylight bays in the expansive main event space, and united them with a second-story cafe 'dropped' in between. This angular addition cantilevers out over Center Street and cuts a modern silhouette against the backdrop of a clear blue sky.
Excavating the entire footprint doubled the square footage, and allowed for a series of subterranean spaces that include four additional galleries in the more traditional, four-white-wall style, as well as study centers with resources once only available to specialists. 'The goal is to store and preserve artifacts, but also allow people to engage with art in ways they haven't before,' Rinder says.
A pair of purpose-built theaters will offer screenings both intimate - in the smaller, 32-seater - and robust - in a Meyer Sound-optimized auditorium that can accommodate 230 viewers - plus a 12-piece-band for silent film performances. And in dedication to its role as a true boon for the community, a 30-foot-wide LCD screen will adorn the facade on the flip-side, opening up the possibility for '24/7 public programs and screenings,' Rinder says. 'Our role is as a part of the life of the city-and the city doesn't close down at 5pm.'
Scheduled to open officially in 2016, the project is an inspired case of adaptive reuse
The archive will be housed in a transformed 1930s-era former printing plant; including a disused factory and adjacent office
Diller Scofidio + Renfro redesigned the space into a modern, multimedia hub that will be open and accessible to the public
The existing buildings' gallery spaces will now be complemented by a series of subterranean display halls; this was achieved by excavating the entire footprint and doubling the scheme's square footage
An angular addition cuts a modern silhouette for the archive, creating contemporary shapes inside and out
INFORMATION
Photography: Iwan Baan
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
-
Feel at home at Auberge, Château La Coste's new inn for culture lovers
Auberge La Coste sits at the heart of the art-filled estate, minutes away from the joyful town of Aix-en-Provence
By Harriet Thorpe Published
-
This Nova Lima apartment is a Brazilian family oasis with striking Minas Gerais views
A Nova Lima apartment designed by Jacobsen Arquitetura celebrates its long, natural Minas Gerais vistas
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Commune’s sustainable personal care products look ‘quite unlike anything else’
Commune’s Somerset-made products stand out in the sustainable skincare crowd. Madeleine Rothery speaks with the brand’s co-founders Kate Neal and Rémi Paringaux
By Madeleine Rothery Published
-
IM Pei's Everson Museum of Art gets a modern makeover
The East Wing of the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY has been given a contemporary refresh by emerging Los Angeles studio MILLIØNS
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Black Modernism’s lesser-known, at-risk architecture gems gain a lifeline
Conserving Black Modernism announces vital funding to save and preserve overlooked and endangered buildings by African American architects and designers
By Bridget Downing Published
-
Step into the Blanton Museum of Art's reimagined public realm by Snøhetta in Austin
Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas is completed and reveals its reimagined public realm and plaza designed by Snøhetta
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
This New York Townhouse renovation is a lesson in contemporary minimalism
TenBerke’s carefully considered New York townhouse is the reimagining of a century-old Manhattan structure that reframes vertical living
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Visit The Frost House, a lesser-known modernist architecture marvel in Michigan City
The Frost House is a lesser-known midcentury architecture gem in Michigan City, Indiana; we took the tour as the property goes on the market
By Audrey Henderson Published
-
Broadway designer Scott Pask’s Arizona retreat is a scene-stealing discovery
Scott Pask invites us inside his Arizona retreat, nestled in the foothills overlooking Tucson – a place to reboot, recharge and commune with nature
By Michael Webb Published
-
Upstate New York retreat Ridge House evokes land art
Ridge House in upstate New York, the work of Brooklyn-based studio Worrell Yeung, is at one with the surrounding countryside
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Rafael de Cárdenas’ first ground-up project is a forever home with waterfront views and hidden treasures
Rafael de Cárdenas reveals his latest completed project in the Pacific Northwest, a family home of calming spaces that bleed the outside in, and ten years in the making
By Ellie Stathaki Published