Designed by Josef Paul Kleihues and completed in 1996, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago was conceived from a Neo-Rationalist persuasion. Today, the museum’s collection and programming have doubled in size. This studio takes the original MCA as a point of departure in designing an Architectural Double—a new building of the same size and program—on an adjacent site. 

The challenge in conceiving this doppelgänger lies in incorporating what was inarticulate or weak in the original building as a component of a new coherent whole. Together, the museums form an urban diptych and become a singular artifact.

The Architectural Double in the Museum City is a Studio Report from the Fall 2015 semester at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Edited by Sharon Johnston & Mark Lee
Designed by Zak Jensen & Laura Grey
Softcover, 143 pages, 17 x 24.5 cm
ISBN 978-1-934510-56-8

See the publication on Issuu 

Top image courtesy of Harvard GSD

> via Harvard GSD