Grand Rapids Art Museum

The Grand Rapids Art Museum is the world's first and only art museum whose entire facility is LEED certified. Located in the heart of downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, the new building is the city's first museum space created specifically for presenting works of art.

The mission of the Grand Rapids Art Museum is to provide a gathering place where people of all ages and backgrounds can enrich their lives through interaction with works of art in a thought-provoking and creative way.

About and Collection

The Grand Rapids Art Museum is known locally under the acronym GRAM. It presents exhibitions of national caliber and regional distinction. The museum collection spans Renaissance to Modern art, with particular strength in European and American 19th and 20th century painting and sculpture. Its Works On Paper Study includes more than 3,500 prints, drawings and photographs. In total, GRAM’s collection consists of 5,000 works of art. The strength of the painting collection is modern art, which includes Richard Diebenkorn’s major early work Ingleside (1963).

Home to Steelcase, Herman Miller and Haworth, Grand Rapids’ legacy as a leading center for design and manufacturing is reflected is the museum’s growing collection of design and modern craft. GRAM’s collection also includes the work of leading artists from the Michigan and Great Lakes region.

Exhibitions

With its new facility, featuring convert|20000|sqft|m2 of exhibition space, GRAM is able to host exhibitions of international acclaim and presentations coordinated exclusively by the organization.

GRAM is currently showing an exclusive exhibition of Andy Warhol's best-known paintings and screenprints through June 15. "Rapid Exposure: Warhol in Series" investigates in depth the repeated image that is central to Warhol’s aesthetic. The exhibition has been coordinated by GRAM and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

History

Founded in 1910 as the Grand Rapid Art Association, the Grand Rapids Art Museum’s initial collection was assembled and relocated to a Greek Revival residence on Fulton St. in 1924, shortly after it was renamed the Grand Rapids Art Museum. In 1981 the Museum moved into a historic, Beaux-Arts style Federal Building at the corner of Pearl and Ottawa Streets.

Construction of a new, LEED-certified green museum building began in September 2004. Designed by emerging architect Kulapat Yantrasast, partner at wHY Architecture, located in Culver City, California. It was the first large building designed by wHY Architecture, and to date, remains the only one.

The new GRAM is a completely new building, totaling convert|125000|sqft|m2. It is more than three times as large as the Federal Building it replaces. The new museum space includes nearly convert|20000|sqft|m2 of gallery and exhibition space, capable of hosting national and international touring exhibitions, as well as increased space for education and public programs.

The Museum raised more than $75 million to meet its capital campaign goal, which included the new museum facility, site acquisition and endowment.

The capital campaign to build the new GRAM was supported by a $20 million lead gift from the Wege Foundation, organized by long-time cultural philanthropist and environmental advocate Peter M. Wege. Twelve additional donors made gifts of $1 million or more, establishing a collaboration of private philanthropy unprecedented in Grand Rapids for a single cultural project. In the first year of the campaign, The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, Jay and Betty Van Andel Foundation, Steelcase Foundation, Fred and Lena Meijer, and Daniel and Pamella DeVos Foundation accounted for $20 million in gifts.

Sited in the heart of the growing West Michigan community, the new museum building is located adjacent to architect Maya Lin’s Ecliptic (designed in 2000), an urban, sculptural park in downtown Grand Rapids.

The Building

The concrete and glass building from the exterior is a minimalist, windowless series of concrete cubes topped by skylights, offering a stark contrast to the ornate Italianate, Beaux Arts, Neoclassical, and Romanesque Revival buildings that surround it. While the building won many accolades for its LEED certified design, the building has also been the source of some controversy, described by detractors as a resembling a concrete bunker. According to the building's architect, however, "Twenty or 30 years from now people may have a different definition of art. If they want to be able to change the museum, you have to give them room to do that." [ [http://aqsaint.com/2008/06/16/grand-rapids-art-museum-takes-the-leed] ]

The building's structure is organized around a central pavilion of glass and light-colored concrete flanked by a reflecting pool, a pocket park with a water wall and open-air sculpture and dining courtyards. As visitors move from the pavilion towards the gallery wing, natural light from the overhead skylights is intended to give the space a sense of upward procession towards the special exhibition and permanent collection galleries.

The three-floor gallery wing features glass skylight lanterns which invite natural light into the space, and illuminates the building at night. In addition to its galleries, the building design includes a multi-use, flexible seating auditorium, education center, art reference library, café and museum shop as well as conference and study rooms.

Outside, a large portico with an expansive roof canopy cantilevered toward the park extends the building’s connection to Ecliptic, providing shaded comfort in warm weather and a protected area from which to view ice skaters on the Ecliptic rink in the winter. Among other public amenities is a warming shelter for the skating rink within Maya Lin’s Ecliptic. The building also includes lower-level underground loading dock, central security, and staff parking.

Parkland, plantings and water features of the new GRAM have been maximized to reduce the urban “heat island” effect caused by paved surfaces. The museum’s exterior landscaping and plantings are plotted to make the most efficient use of water and other resources.

"Air Conditioning"The building’s air conditioning and filtration systems is a passive system via vapor misting using zero HCFC (hydrochlorofluorocarbon) emissions and strict CO2 emissions monitoring.

"Lighting"The building’s lighting systems includes external fixed louvers and an interior shading system to diffuse natural light through the museum, lantern skylight system in galleries, skylight louvers in galleries, adjustable to accommodate varied exhibitions.

"Water"Recycled rainwater will be used in systems throughout the facility, including toilet flushes, planting irrigation, reflecting pool and water wall.

"Insulation"The building’s insulation systems include light-colored concrete walls, three-layer UV filter glass in windows, insulating Aragon gas between glass window panels and low-emission coatings on all components.

"Recycling"The museum operates a strict recycling policy to decrease day-to-day environmental impact

"Construction"Environmentally friendly measure taken during the building process including 10% recycled materials used in construction, 20% of all materials used in construction, including wood and concrete, obtained from local sources, wood products obtained from Forest Service Council-certified lumberyards, recycling of waste created during construction.

ee also

*
*sustainable architecture
*Energy conservation
*Environmental design
*Renewable energy
*Permaculture
*Ecological footprint

External links

* [http://www.gramonline.org/ GRAM Website]
* [http://www.why-architecture.com/ wHY Architecture]

Notes