The Architect's Newspaper: Magazzino unveils the Robert Olnick Pavilion, designed by Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo

It began its life as a computer chip warehouse facility off of Route 9 in Cold Spring, New York, a small town with a Metro-North train station and a few restaurants on its main street. Magazzino means “warehouse” in Italian, playing off this industrial past of the site, but the Magazzino Italian Art museum has been committed to refined elegance since it first opened its doors. What may have once seemed like an odd geographic choice for a hyper-niche collection of nation- and movement-specific artwork was actually just one of several arts institutions that began the Hudson Valley’s art destination explosion. This week, the museum shows just how far they’ve come with the Robert Olnick Pavilion, the latest addition to their growing campus.

First opening its doors in 2017, it housed a collection of midcentury Italian art (notably collections of Arte Povera), many pieces which had never been seen before in the United States. All are from the collection of Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu. (The pavilion is named for Olnick’s father, Robert.) Yet while the arts institution often hosts film screenings, live music and community dinners, the primacy of the permanent collection—in the somewhat compact digs of the magazzino—never allowed for more dynamic programming. The small internal courtyard nestled between the taller concrete wing and the low-slung white mass was never quite enough. The long-awaited unveiling of the Robert Olnick Pavilion just up the hill set out to change that.