No. 48
April 5, 2001
Immediate Release

Contact:
Karen Gysin 612.375.7651
karen.gysin@walkerart.org


WALKER ART CENTER UNVEILS EXPANSION PLAN

HERZOG & DE MEURON'S VISION REALIZES THE WALKER'S "MORE THAN A MUSEUM" MODEL, CREATING A NEW INDOOR/OUTDOOR DESTINATION THAT FOSTERS AN INTERPLAY OF ART FORMS IN A "TOWN-SQUARE" SETTING

MAJOR ELEMENTS INCLUDE FOUR-ACRE SCULPTURE GARDEN, GALLERIES, INTERACTIVE SPACES FOR LEARNING, AND MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERFORMANCE STUDIO

Minneapolis, MN--Walker Art Center Director Kathy Halbreich unveiled today the conceptual design for the expanded Walker campus, a $90 million expansion and renovation project designed to enhance the artistic, educational, and social experience for all visitors, including families, students, teens, and artists. The Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron, in partnership with Minneapolis-based Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc. (HGA), collaborated with the Walker on a conceptual design that features an interplay of integrated indoor and outdoor spaces. The conceptual design phase proposes in general terms how big the expansion project will be, what it will look like, and what it will cost. Further development of the design will take up to two years, with construction beginning in 2003. The expanded facility, reflecting the unique multidisciplinary focus of the Walker's programs for the first time in its history, is scheduled to open to the public in 2005.

The project team is: Jacques Herzog, Principal, Christine Binswanger, Principal, and Raphael Forny, Project Manager, Herzog & de Meuron, Basel, Switzerland; and John Cook, Project Architect, Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc. (HGA), Minneapolis. Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron were chosen this week to receive the 2001 Pritzker Architecture Prize sponsored by The Hyatt Foundation of Los Angeles.

"This is a historic moment for the Walker and the community, a unique time and place to make a major leap into the future," says Walker Director Kathy Halbreich. "Our emerging plan, which the community has responded to with imagination and support, is based on the most innovative thinking surrounding the development of an animated learning environment for the arts. In what will be a "smarter" destination, additional fields of information will make more transparent the 'hows' and 'whys' of the artistic process. As a result, I know the Walker can grow to be a civic magnet--a meeting place in which artists, art forms, ideas, and audiences converge."

The Walker's expansion addresses the museum's need for additional space to meet the growth in attendance, programs, and collections as well as increase its emphasis on education. One of the most visited art museums nationally, the Walker and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden are also among the 10 most popular tourist attractions in Minnesota. With record-breaking attendance of 992,000 visitors in 1999-2000 and more than 150,000 visitors each month to its Web site, the Walker is poised to expand upon its foundation as "one of the foremost museums of modern art, second only in some people's thinking to the Museum of Modern Art" (The New York Times).

The enhanced Walker Art Center, with an additional 100,000-110,000 square feet of interior space, four acres of green space, nearly 14,000 square feet of rooftop terraces, and on-site underground parking, will feature galleries and gardens for the museum's growing collection; a technologically sophisticated studio for contemporary dance, music, performance, and theater programs; a new-media laboratory; new spaces for innovative education programs; and visitor amenities, including a new restaurant, café, shop, and 700-vehicle parking facility. The existing facility will be remodeled to better support other Walker programs, including those in film/video. The expanded Walker will include a series of indoor and outdoor rooms and terraces, that, like the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, will operate as a "town square," drawing people for informal conversation, interactive learning, and community programs. This beautiful and inviting space, with distinct zones of quiet and conviviality, will introduce the visitor to the Walker's unique spectrum of programs and to the ideas animating them. As Walker Director Daniel S. Defenbacher said in 1944, "An Art Center is a 'town meeting' in a field of human endeavor as old as man himself. By definition, it is a meeting place for all the arts. It provides space in which the public can both participate and be a spectator." The Walker, with its multidisciplinary focus, is "more than a museum," and its expanded facility will allow for many approaches to engagement, ranging from an individual's meditative experience to interactive conversation and collective discovery.

The plan integrates the existing building with new construction while respecting both the integrity of Edward Larrabee Barnes' design and the residential character of the neighborhood. The expansion, nearly doubling the size of the current facility, is oriented to the south, along Hennepin Avenue, to the site now occupied by the Allianz Life Insurance Company building. A new two-level structure, connecting with the existing facility, will feature galleries and education spaces. The taller south end of the addition includes the multidisciplinary performance studio, shop, and a restaurant offering commanding views of Loring Park and downtown Minneapolis. The resulting new facade, embracing Hennepin Avenue at street level, will be transparent and inviting in nature, opening up to the life of downtown Minneapolis.

The materials selected for the facade of the new structure, still in development, will be conscious of day versus nighttime effects, echoing the architects' innovative exterior treatments that respond to specific settings and communities. Writing this week in The New York Times about the selection of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron to receive the 2001 Pritzker Architecture Prize, Herbert Muschamp said: "Working within a modern idiom, Herzog & de Meuron is best known for its refined use of building materials. Whether using wood, concrete, glass, stone or metal alloys, the firm's projects invariably have the luster of gems. Light figures prominently in the designs, glowing softly through metallic screens or captured by the burnished texture of concrete floors. With translucent glass and veil-like metal facades, the architects treat walls as porous membranes between public and private space."

An indoor and outdoor gathering spot, the expanded Walker will offer multiple ways to relax and be engaged in both contemplative and animated settings. The eastern side of the facility will offer views of the urban cityscape, while the quieter western side will focus on the natural landscape provided by the newly added garden acreage. A fountain and seasonal plantings will add sound and fragrance. The expanded Walker will be accessible via three entrances: at Hennepin Avenue; at a redesigned Vineland Place entrance serving visitors from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and the surrounding neighborhood; and from underground parking.

"Long before my first visit, I was aware of the Walker's daring, contemporary programs, and the opportunity to work with Kathy Halbreich and Richard Flood on the expansion project was extremely compelling," says Jacques Herzog. "This is a unique opportunity to work with an institution that truly has a multidisciplinary focus and deep connections to its communities. The support for the arts in the Twin Cities and the innovative nature of the Walker are a refreshing counterpoint to the conservative spirit you feel in so many other institutions and cities."

Christine Binswanger added: "The spirit I encounter both in the community and at the Walker has been invigorating, and I look forward to continuing the collaboration that has developed in conjunction with this project."

"Town Square"
A series of indoor and outdoor rooms and terraces will operate as a "town square." A new street-level plaza spanning the current and expanded facility along Hennepin Avenue will be a site for casual public gathering. People entering a Hennepin Avenue entrance will find a visitor service area; the Walker Shop; a lounge in which to sit and relax; a "talking wall" with short media presentations introducing the multidisciplinary artistic programs available; an Info Lounge that offers individuals and small groups digital access to the Walker's library, archives, and collections as well as the opportunity to digitally create their own art; and a Garden Lounge with light-filled views of a new Sculpture Garden. An expanded Art Lab and orientation area for school groups and the general public will be located in a remodeled Vineland Place lobby, and a café will serve snacks and beverages that can be enjoyed indoors as well as outdoors in an adjacent courtyard. The expansion will more than double the space for rooftop terraces, which will surround the entire facility and afford commanding views of Loring Park, the downtown Minneapolis skyline, and 15 acres of garden.

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
With the Guthrie Theater's move to a new facility on the Minneapolis riverfront scheduled for 2004, the Walker will create a four-acre sculpture garden on the land now occupied by the Guthrie building and the parking lot located at the rear of the Allianz building. Added to the 11-acre Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, the new green space will enhance the urban landscape, bringing the total garden acreage to 15.

Galleries
The expanded Walker will include greater access to the museum's growing permanent collection by more than doubling the space for permanent collection installations as well as reconfiguring temporary exhibition space. At the present time, less than two percent of the Walker's holdings are on view at any one time. The new permanent collection galleries will focus on those artists who have been collected in depth, enabling the visitor to experience an artist's development. Total gallery space will grow by 15, 000 square feet to a total of 45,000 square feet.

Multidisciplinary Performance Studio
As the lines between the visual, performing, and media arts become increasingly blurred in the 21st century, this multidisciplinary space will provide support for artistic innovation. The new 350-seat space for the development of new artist commissions as well as for master classes will expand the range and definition of theater, dance, opera, and music, while offering audiences an intimate connection to the creation of new work. Ringed by a new-media laboratory and galleries, the studio will allow for the convergence of art forms in a pioneering, one-of-a-kind theatrical space. A refreshment area adjacent to the Studio will provide indoor and rooftop terrace seating.

Media Arts
The addition of the Multidisciplinary Performance Studio will make available the current Auditorium and Lecture Room as well as a new Info Lounge for film/video screenings and educational programs during both daytime and evening hours. In addition, a technologically sophisticated Mediatheque gallery will provide a showcase for the nationally recognized digital arts projects commissioned by the Walker.

Interpretive Educational Programs
Public and highly visible spaces will be dedicated to school and community groups, teens, and tour guides, and a series of interactive spaces for individualized learning will be located throughout the building. Added will be a public Info Lounge, extending the previously private library, where visitors of all ages can personalize itineraries to guide their journey through the building and the Walker's artistic resources; a new Art Lab, double its current size, for hands-on experiences for people of all ages; and a teen center to house the museum's model program for youth.

Visitor Amenities
In addition to the street-level and rooftop terraces will be a new restaurant and special events space, which doubles the current seating capacity; a new Shop; a café; 700-vehicle underground parking; and improved visitor services and box office areas.

Non-Public Spaces
The expansion project also will serve to renovate and upgrade several service aspects of the existing building, including art storage, exhibition services, receiving, and loading dock areas. Back-of-house facilities and security and staff office areas also will be expanded.

In January 1999, the Walker announced its intention to purchase the neighboring Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America building and grounds, a 3.4-acre property that once included the residence of museum founder T. B. Walker. By reacquiring this property, the Walker has the opportunity to significantly expand its facility for the first time in 30 years. In creating a model 21st-century arts center with audience engagement and experiential learning at its core, Herzog & de Meuron has developed a plan that will permit increased facilities allowing the Walker to share more of its resources--from objects in the permanent collection to books in its library to artists' creative processes. The planning also encompasses the development of a sophisticated infrastructure to support the presentation of art and provide for personalized learning, placing the Walker among the first technologically "smart" cultural facilities in the world.

A Community Participation Committee, made up of committed neighbors, has been meeting to discuss plans for the expansion since September 2000. Assembled at the suggestion of Minneapolis Council Member Lisa Goodman, the group is made up of two individuals from each of the four neighborhoods surrounding the Walker. The committee has been involved from the earliest aspects of design and their input and suggestions have been invaluable. In the coming months, the expansion plans will be taken directly to community groups and neighborhood organizations for feedback. Community Participation Committee member and former Minnesota state senator Carol Flynn says, "A wonderful bonus to moving downtown has been my participation in the Walker expansion project. Early community participation has resulted in plans for increased neighborhood access by all modes of transportation as well as access for pedestrians. My new neighbors are excited about this remarkable asset in our community."

Herzog & de Meuron is especially known for its ability to create buildings that are responsive to their settings and communities. Among its many important commissions around the world are the spectacular new Tate Modern in London, which opened to critical acclaim in May 2000, and the new M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, which is currently in development. Its Dominus Winery project in California was selected by Time magazine for the Best of 1998 Design Award.

The award-winning firm Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc. (HGA) designed the Minnesota Historical Society and has more than 35 years experience in designing museum buildings throughout the United States. The firm has been associated with the Walker since 1978.



The Walker Art Center is located one block off Highway I-94 at the corner of Lyndale Avenue South and Vineland Place in Minneapolis. For public information, call 612.375.7622. Gallery hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 10 am-5 pm; Thursday, 10 am-9 pm; Sunday, 11 am-5 pm; closed Monday.