SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia

Savannah College of Art and Design has expanded its museum, re-imagining it as the new SCAD Museum of Art

(Image credit: Photography by Adam Kuehl; Courtesy of SCAD)

last updated 21 October 2022

It's not every day a new building rises in Savannah, a city that experienced its heyday in the mid-19th century. So Sottile & Sottile's addition to the antebellum structure that houses the museum at Savannah College of Art and Design is a coup for this historic centre in America's deep south.

The new SCAD Museum of Art's triumph is a 25m steel and glass lantern, tall enough to feature alongside the spires and copper domes on the city's skyline. But the real marvel is the drastic juxtaposition between the original Greek Revival structure - including ruins of an 1853 railway depot - and the soaring, light-filled spaces conceived by Christian Sottile, also a SCAD professor and alumnus. Together, they grow the museum's exhibition and education space by more than 6,000 sq m.

Added components include indoor and outdoor theatres, galleries, 'learning laboratories' and a massive auditorium, all incorporating antique bricks from the original site.

The building is inaugurated by site-specific exhibits by four American artists: sculptor Liza Lou, portraitist Kehinde Wiley and installation artists Bill Viola and Kendall Buster. The new SCAD Museum of Art also incorporates the freshly revamped Walter O Evans Center for African American Studies, one of the finest black art collections in the US.

But perhaps most excitingly, the vivacious former US

Vogue editor-at-large, Andre Leon Talley, who received an honorary doctorate from SCAD in 2008, has launched his eponymous fashion gallery, featuring designs by Tom Ford, Oscar de la Renta, Zac Posen, Isabel Toledo and

Manolo Blahnik.

To rework the existing antebellum structure, the college called on Savannah-based architects Sottile & Sottile

A view of the upper terrace. Sottile & Sottile have grown the museum’s exhibition and education space by more than 6,000 sq m

The building’s triumph is a 25m steel and glass lantern, tall enough to feature alongside the spires and copper domes on the city’s skyline

The architects have juxtaposed the original Greek Revival structure, including ruins of an 1853 railway depot...

SCAD Museum of Art.

With dramatic, light-filled spaces — ... with dramatic, light-filled spaces

Interior view of the historic Central of Georgia Railroad depot before preservation

Exterior view of the Central of Georgia Railroad depot before preservation

Added components to the museum include indoor and outdoor theatres, galleries, ’learning laboratories’ and a massive auditorium, all incorporating antique bricks from the original site

The view of the galleries within the new SCAD Museum of Art — Illustration depicting the view of the galleries within the new SCAD Museum of Art

Illustration of the lantern atrium and gallery entrance

The renovated and expanded museum launches with site-specific exhibits by four American artists: sculptor Liza Lou, portraitist Kehinde Wiley and installation artists Bill Viola and Kendall Buster. Pictured here is ’The Judgment Day' by Aaron Douglas, 1927.

From the collection of the Walter O. Evans Center for African American Studies, SCAD Museum of Art

Kendall Buster’s ’New Growth: Stratum Field’ is a site-specific sculptural installation designed to engage with the resonant features of the museum’s new 290-foot south-facing gallery

Installation view of the the solo exhibition of recent works

Alexander the Great,

From the Ann and Mel Schaffer Family Collection; Courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California and Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago

’The Piano Lesson b. 1911, Charlotte, North Carolina’

Talley has curated an exhibition, entitled High Style — For the André Leon Talley Gallery inauguration, Talley has curated an exhibition, entitled ’High Style’, featuring the seminal works of the honorary recipients of the André Leon Talley Lifetime Achievement Award

The gallery will also showcase the career-defining moments of contemporary fashion stars such as Tom Ford, Oscar de la Renta, Zac Posen, Isabel Toledo and Manolo Blahnik

The white square as a classical geometric starting-point, the four panels — Taking the white square as a classical geometric starting-point, the four panels in Stephen Antonakos’ ’Tessares’ are meant to show how different feelings and meanings may result from subtle formal and chromatic variations

One of the four panels in the ’Tessares’ exhibit by Stephen Anotonakos

An external performance projection by Nick Cave, entitled ’Drive-By’, features Cave and numerous dancers, suited like supernatural beings, energetically moving and interacting in a jovial ceremony

ADDRESS

SCAD Museum of Art
601 Turner Blvd.
Savannah, Georgia

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Based in London, Ellen Himelfarb travels widely for her reports on architecture and design. Her words appear in The Times, The Telegraph, The World of Interiors, and The Globe and Mail in her native Canada. She has worked with Wallpaper* since 2006.