Nasher Sculpture Center
Nasher Sculpture Center
Main page
2056541

Nasher Sculpture Center

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Nasher Sculpture Center

Opened in 2003, the Nasher Sculpture Center is a museum in Dallas, Texas, that houses the Patsy and Raymond Nasher collection of modern and contemporary sculpture. It is located on a 2.4-acre (9,700 m2) site adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art in the Dallas Arts District.

Patsy and Raymond Nasher began collecting sculpture in the 1950s. Together they formed a comprehensive collection of masterpieces by Harry Bertoia, Constantin Brâncuși, Alexander Calder, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Paul Gauguin, Willem de Kooning, Mark di Suvero, Alberto Giacometti, Barbara Hepworth, Ellsworth Kelly, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, Claes Oldenburg, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Richard Serra, and David Smith, among others.

In 1997, Raymond Nasher acquired a plot of land in downtown Dallas across the street from the Dallas Museum of Art and hired architect Renzo Piano to design the Nasher Sculpture Center. The Nasher Foundation funded the entire $70 million cost of designing and constructing the museum, which includes indoor and outdoor galleries. The Sculpture Center opened in 2003 and features a regularly changing exhibition of works from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection. By placing the facility on what was formerly part of the old Caruth family farm of c. 1850, Ray Nasher began the realization of the Arts District in Dallas, which has since been enhanced by the construction of the Winspear Opera House and the Wyly Theater.

Renzo Piano, winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1998, is the architect of the Center's 55,000-square-foot (5,100 m2) building; he had been selected after Nasher met him at the opening of the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, in 1997. Piano has designed several critically acclaimed art museums; foremost among them are the Beyeler Museum in Basel, the Menil Collection in Houston, and Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris (in collaboration with Richard Rogers). He has been praised as an architect who has the genius to meld art, architecture, and advanced engineering to create some of the most remarkable museums in the world.

Piano worked in collaboration with landscape architect Peter Walker of PWP Landscape Architecture on the design of the 2-acre (8,100 m2) Garden. Walker has exerted a significant impact on the field of landscape architecture over a four-decade career. The scope of Walker's landscape projects is expansive and varied. It ranges from small gardens to new cities, corporate headquarters and academic campuses to urban plazas.

The building was constructed by The Beck Group, which also served as associate architect.

The facility opened in 2003 in a 55,000-square-foot building on a 2.4-acre site adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art. Reflective glare of the nearby Museum Tower, constructed in 2012, comes in through the glass roof, putting portions of the collection at risk of damage. Artist James Turrell considered his work Tending (Blue) to be effectively destroyed by the tower's intrusion on its view, and the museum closed the artwork's chamber to the public at his request.

The museum has two levels: the ground level houses four galleries, institute offices, and a boardroom. The garden terraces downward to the auditorium, creating an open-air theater.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.