Detail: The Robert Olnick Pavilion near New York

Arte Povera and Murano glass are the two highlights of the collection at the Magazzino Italian Art museum near Cold Spring, a village located around 80 km north of New York City. Five years ago, New York architect Miguel Quismondo repurposed a storage facility for dairy products as an exhibition hall for the husband-and-wife collectors Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu. Moreover, Quismondo also expanded the hall with a block-like addition of exposed concrete.

A well-proportioned structure of exposed concrete

Along with Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza, who Quismondo describes as his mentor, the architect has now added a further element to the museum grounds. The Robert Olnick Pavilion stands on a sloping terrain south of the preceding museum buildings. Formally, it almost appears like a restatement of Quismondo’s first project in Cold Spring, for it has the same exposed-concrete facades with their striking, regular panelling as well as the same monolithic block shape.