Dezeen: Monolithic New York museum pavilion features "perfect cube" gallery
July 13, 2023
Spanish architects Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo have collaborated to create the Robert Olnick Pavilion for the Magazzino Italian Art museum in Cold Spring, New York.
The concrete-clad pavilion is the second structure on the campus of the museum, which is dedicated to promoting Italian art and design in the United States.
Quismondo, who designed the first building on the site, worked with Baeza to expand the gallery capabilities of the institution.
The pavilion is partially submerged into a sloping green hill, with entrances on either side of the building at the top and bottom of the grade.
It has a monolithic concrete facade with little detail, punctuated at points by simple square windows. At the top of the hill, the structure has a vertical element that gives the whole building an L shape.
Within this space a double-height gallery was conceived of as an isotropic room that is a "perfect cube", according to the architects. Windows were placed at each corner to create a sundial effect when light from outside enters.