Architect Thomas Phifer Creates a Space in which the Art Can Live

The Contemporary Art + Design Wing was designed by architect Thomas Phifer who strives to connect the built environment with the natural world in every project that he undertakes. Since founding Thomas Phifer and Partners in 1997, he has completed the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, N.C; the Raymond and the Susan Brochstein Pavilion at Rice University in Houston, Texas; and the Salt Point House, the Millbrook House, and the Taghkanic House, all in the Hudson River Valley of New York State.

By Thomas Phifer

What impressed me most on my first visit to The Corning Museum of Glass was how vital the institution is. Its innovative programs and collection of glass are truly inspirational, its reach remarkable. It was clear to me that the focus of our work over the next three and a half years would be to create the best setting for their extensive collection of contemporary glass while honoring Corning’s important ethos of innovation. We began this journey by trying to fundamentally understand glass as a material.

Corning invited us to design an expansion which would include new spaces for theirncontemporary glass collection as well as a theater, located in the former Steuben Glass factory. It became immediately clear that our new addition must forge a deep connection with the existing museum buildings and serve as a central and clarifying structure on the Corning campus. In 1951, Wallace Harrison designed the original campus with deceptively simple modernist rectangles clad in precisely detailed glass and steel. These still form the backbone of their campus. The new gallery building had to speak to this context and the contemporary works it contained. In contrast, the Steuben factory had to be restored to honor the activity of crafting with hot glass.

We conceived the new Contemporary Art + Design Wing as a “building on the green” – a structure that operates both as an organizing element and is also emblematic of its contemporary contents. We worked closely with the director and curators on an architecture that aligns with the spirit of contemporary glass. The works in their contemporary collection are increasing in scale and ambition – like Constellation by Kiki Smith or Liza Lou’s Continuous Mile.

For me, light is integral to everything we experience. Light marks the passage of time and connects us with nature. It is the poetry in our lives. I saw this in my first hot glass demonstration and again when we were introduced to the research and development process of the Museum’s major benefactor, Corning Incorporated. We became passionately invested as we discovered how much precision and innovation are involved with glass. We found ourselves literally being enlightened and empowered through innovation.

There was a transformative moment when we took a tall Alvar Aalto vase outside and looked at it in natural light. With the crisp fall light coming from the sky the vase held an amazingly clear, bright, and intense light. It embodied the light and simply glowed as it pushed the light back towards us. I so admire the rigor that glass artists bring to their works, from attention to temperature and gravity to the quality of the surface and moments of illumination. We wanted to bring this same focus to the architecture to create an extremely quiet building, which would operate in harmony with the glass works.

We realized that we were beginning to investigate an experience that was different from the way we traditionally thought about museums. Contemporary glass is not harmed by the quantity of light. Horizontal illumination puts the glass in silhouette and limits the patron’s understanding of the form of the work itself; however, light from above does the opposite. It honors the material so that the more light the object absorbs, the more it reveals the form, depth, and richness of the glass. It took months of careful research, calibration, looking at contemporary artists’ works and the way they used light to fully understand what this experience should become. The embodiment of light in these works is the poetry that makes a truly memorable experience.

Inspired by the image of walking into a white cloud, we designed a collection of spaces defined by soft curving walls that dissolve the separation between the art, atmosphere, light and space. The walls and light unify the experience while honoring the works. Freed of a normal museum relationship of wall mounted works, the curving walls and the light from above enable the pieces on the floor to levitate. The simple exterior glass surfaces are white, contemporary and almost devoid of detail. They frame the works inside much like a vitrine. This building is a distilled container for glass and light; a place that serves the art.