In this episode of our series about the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art International Design Competition, As Built co-hosts Patience Jones and Brian Jones speak with competition finalist Jeanne Gang, FAIA* of the firm Studio Gang.
PJ: Hello and welcome to As Built, the podcast from Graphicmachine about architecture firms, buildings, and how both get built. I'm your host, Patience Jones. With me is your co-host, Brian Jones. Today's episode is the next in our series about the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art International Design Competition.
Our guest today is Jeanne Gang of the firm Studio Gang. Welcome to the podcast. Tell us about your firm.
JG: We’re Studio Gang, an architecture and design firm. We're currently about 150 people. And I guess I'd like to say that we always think of ourselves as relationship builders, which sounds funny for an architecture firm, but we think of it as how architecture can help to build relationships between people, between each other, between people and their environment.
It's really about setting the stage for those interactions to happen. And it's really helpful, I think, for communities to have an architecture like that, that sets that up. We're very much into sustainability in different ways in all of our buildings.
Whatever is kind of relevant for the project at hand - that's us. I started it. I can just give you a little bit more background if you want it, as your next question, I know, is where we're based. So I’ll just bleed right into that one. I started in Chicago and my first projects were community centers, and that's what really started this philosophy about understanding community, listening to people and their differences and their dreams. Our first projects were these community centers around Chicago, our home city where we started.
And then as we got different projects, different building types, like museums for example, and the other cultural institutions, it started to be like, how can you bring that sense of community to those project types? So even in high rises that we do, we're always thinking about, how people can have these spaces of connection and really make them feel comfortable in those different buildings.
We are based in Chicago. That was the founding city. But we now have offices in New York and San Francisco and Paris. Not bad. All nice cities.
BJ: What type of work is your firm known for?
JG: I guess in general, our firm's work is divided about evenly between institutions, like cultural institutions, like theaters, higher education, you know, public clients like state and municipalities and federal clients. And then the other half is pretty much private clients. So, that's kind of the way that it divides.
We've worked in many different building types, but I think probably our best-known ones are cultural institutions for organizations. And then some of our private work, which is taller buildings in different cities, high-rises for living and for working.
So I think people know that we don't just do one building type. I think that's fair to say.
PJ: What is one of your favorite projects to have worked on and why?
JG: I recently finished the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock, and that was really great because it was an institution that was already very beloved, but the problem was the building was getting in the way of them really expanding on their mission and being a place where people - it didn't have an identity.
It was a kind of a very strange mix of buildings over time. And then this new addition and kind of edit, I would call it, helped to bring all the different parts together and give it a more cohesive identity. And also again, let people connect to each other through the program and out to this park where it was sited.
So, that one, that project I really loved. It's hard to say my favorite, but at the same time, we were finishing up the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and it was this addition, the Gilder Center, which again was working with the campus of multiple buildings, but tying them together in ways and really bringing their collections and their education spaces and their science to the forefront in the in the new wing. Just working with all the different curators there, it was really amazing. Those are kind of two big recent hits that I loved.
BJ: Why did your firm decide to enter the Nelson-Atkins competition?
JG: I think it pretty much it goes along the lines of the things that we are interested in: a place that is beloved to its community, but it's also a bit of a secret, just like Kansas City is kind of like the best-kept secret. It's similar in that way. As a museum it has very formidable architecture already. But there are things that are kind of getting in the way of it being everything it can be. It had the kind of similar challenges and opportunities I think, that my most recent projects had. I also have more than a couple of people in my office from Kansas City because having started in Chicago, a lot of people come to us from the Midwest, after they've studied maybe in big cities or on the coasts, and then come back to Chicago. And I feel like Kansas City is one of those cities where people that want to work in architecture - we've been attractive to architects from there.
So I kind of know it through my team members and it's just another connection to Kansas City.
PJ: What have been your impressions of Kansas City so far?
JG: Well, I think this aspect of it being a secret, a best-kept secret is really important. In Kansas City, you have both the NFL major team and sports and you have a major art museum and that's really amazing, because cities of the size of Kansas City don't normally have both of those things.
I feel like it's a place where everybody's really engaged in these major league things like the art museum, like the sports, but also it's a still a community. It's a thriving arts community and I really love that part of it. I also think that there's some just really fun places. Like when we were there, I liked going to the Peanut and just seeing like, you know, this kind of old, very popular little bar and it's just a hangout, you know? And it feels like a place that feels very homey and where people are really friendly, and at the same time, they have this elevated level of performance and art and sport.
BJ: What have you found to be a highlight of the museum from your visit?
JG: One of the things I really appreciated was that there's this encyclopedic collection, something for everyone on the inside, you know, that you get a mix of visitors there, because I saw that happening before my eyes. The outdoors, the Hall Sculpture Garden, that is something really unique too, because the site is so big.
There's this opportunity that a lot of museums don't have, which is to bring the art, you know, from inside and outside. It is very impressive to see that siting of the museum. That really also made me think a lot about how to connect those two realms, because they're seemingly so separate right now, but both of them, the indoor museum and the outdoors, really can stand on its own.
Then if you think about the potential of connecting them, it really is exciting. So there was that. I think I also remember going around into the spaces that no one ever sees - no visitors ever see - and really understanding, you know, the operational side of this museum.
I've always liked that in museums, like the American Museum of Natural History. You would not believe all the stuff going on behind the scenes there, but that is always really interesting: the conservation work that was happening, where the classes are being prepared and taught, how the machinery works and all the people that care for the museum. That was really interesting, because oftentimes those are things that kind of get shoved in a corner in the basement or something like that. In this case they were very much spread out in all different directions, like from the attic down to the lower level. So it was very fascinating.
PJ: What have you found most compelling and challenging about the competition brief.
JG: Well, in a way, the challenging part is the compelling part for me. I really like these complex buildings and these problems and so with the combination of this very complex museum with a very diverse collection of lots of different types of collections. And then the two buildings, of course, you have the historic, iconic building and then you have the Steven Holl Bloch Building.
So it's kind of like, these two very different but very strong architectures. So that's a challenge, like what can this new expansion be, how can you make a link between them but be formidable on its own right. This dialogue that you're trying to create, just on the architectural level, there's that responsibility, I would say.
And then you have on the inside and the site, the multiple levels, because the site is sloping steeply. That's a real challenge in making it very accessible and welcoming and I've been really focused on how to mediate that, those different levels, and how to make it very inviting and easy for people of all ages to be able to move through that.
You want that building this to feel like it really fits in, but it has its own personality. I went to see Union Square in Kansas City, where there's this historic, iconic building and then an addition, but that addition has really become, over use, natural for people to use it. I think that was probably a similar challenge to this, what we have here. What I'm looking for is, how do you fit with this classical language or this kind of abstraction of the Nelson-Atkins but be more mediating in terms of the landscape -- more like the Steven Holl building, does stepping down, down, down the slope and make this really preserve all these aspects of the building that people love, but just making it more accessible. I think the museum's really done a great job with programming and in creating lots of different programs that are more inclusive, to invite people in to use it for different reasons.
But if the building itself is a barrier, then you know that's going to prevent new audiences from coming in and experiencing the programs and the work. So that's what I feel like my job is, to solve that big issue there. More approachable, especially for people that maybe they haven't been in a museum before or - how do you create almost breadcrumbs, you know, to get people to get closer and have activities. And then at some point it's natural just to start to come in and feel invited and be part of the community, and just expand the audience that way for the museum.
BJ: What has inspired your approach to the competition brief?
JG: Right at the top of the competition, the brief says, “Museum for all.” I think that just indicates that the goal is really to find these ways to get more people to come to the museum, to partake in it, to expand the audience and to activate the museum. We learned a lot about the really interesting groups that are already coming to the museum, including teens and kids and different kinds of groups. In thinking about all these different profiles of different potential visitors, I was really thinking about – I should say “we,” because we really spent a lot of time talking about this together - where would different visitors come from and what kind of visit would they want to have? I thought a lot about this, these different entries. So in the way that the museum is growing, it's growing from being just that original building that was half-full when they opened to filling that out and having a new addition.
In a way, this is kind of a new building that adds to, that creates almost like a campus. So how does one engage with this campus kind of setup? There can be different ways in for different people with different needs and that's kind of the basis of the thinking and then making things very easy and intuitive: using light, the directionality of the flow, giving people different choices. Those are all things that we're thinking about. So you arrive, you don't get forced into a certain agenda. You have many points where you can choose and create your own agenda, create your own visit.
We also thought a lot about the creature comforts of going to a museum and you know, sometimes there's no place to sit down, or you can't find the restrooms. Just those kind of simple everyday things. I think that comes from a lot of my work with different kinds of buildings, that these are things that make people feel at ease and comfortable, enjoy their visit. You know, you want to focus on the art. And one of the exciting things about this brief is that there's a lot of new art gallery-type spaces, but they're not the traditional, let's say, “gallery spaces.”
So you know how those connect in and how they can be linked with other programs so they can expand and contract with whatever. The museum folks come up with what they want to do, or what artists want to do, and this is going to be really flexible for them because you can't predict what will happen in the future. Like, different performances are going to be different and art is going to be different. So, we give optionality to grow and shrink spaces so that it can be really useful and fun and flexible.
PJ: What trends do you foresee emerging in museum and/or cultural architecture over the next decade?
JG: Well, I see the trends just starting with what I was talking about earlier with the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. It actually started out as a community center, so it was a place where you could go for classes. It was a school of art and a theater and an art gallery and museum. That was funny because they didn't realize that. They just grew organically over time, but they didn't realize that this is exactly what the future of the museum looks like. You know, it is a community space. It’s many more things than that. What we once saw as just presentation only of art on walls - it's a much more engaging place.
It's a place that this future museum is, a place that also goes outside of its walls. Because it's an organization that’s infusing life with culture. I think that’s where the next decade is going to take us.
*Fellow of the American Institute of Architects
Transcript has been edited for clarity.
Photo of Jeanne Gang © John David Pittman
