The new design for the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts treats architecture and landscape as intrinsically linked.
Compared to the Art Deco 1937 façade of the Courtyard Entrance, which welcomes you into a warm wood-paneled lobby, the Park Entrance blends light and nature into an inspiring space.
Notice how the roof extends to meet the trees, providing deep overhangs that shade the entrance and the dining terrace of the restaurant. The wood on the underside of the roof seamlessly merges into the incredible interior ceiling design.
Much like the Cultural Living Room on the north end of the Museum, the restaurant provides opportunities to socialize and relax at the Museum, complementing its cultural and educational offerings.
The clerestory windows allow you to feel connected to the revitalized landscape and gardens outside with the park’s historic oak grove, helping to bring the park inside.
Finally, the blossoming roof does more than simply provide shade. These intentional lines also direct most of the Museum’s rainwater runoff into the gardens for irrigation, eventually running all the way to the pond just south of the Museum.
And so once again the design choices of the Museum’s Park Entrance are as much a celebration of the natural beauty outside as the art on the walls inside.
