The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) has revealed the finalists’ concept designs devised by renowned US and international architect teams in the competition to reimagine the new Dallas Museum of Art.

David Chipperfield Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Johnston Marklee, Michael Maltzan Architecture, Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, and Weiss/Manfredi are among the six finalists to reimagine the DMA.

Finalists’ concept designs are now on display at the DMA's Mezzanine Level 2, which will run from 11 July – 30 August 2023, and on view in an online gallery¹. 

The competition, announced earlier this year, aimed to give DMA's 39-year-old Edward Larrabee Barnes-designed campus "greater physical visibility and transparency" to show visitors what is going on inside, and make the DMA more welcoming, and accessible to all.

The DMA stated that the Selection Committee will meet in July to interview the finalists and make a recommendation to the Dallas Museum of Art Board of Trustees; a winner is expected to be announced in August. 

"We are delighted to share the competition concepts: six fascinating visions from some of the world’s most accomplished design teams showing how the DMA might be transformed," said The DMA’s Eugene McDermott Director, Dr. Agustín Arteaga.

"We very much look forward to hearing from our communities and welcome comments on the ideas and themes in these proposals. Please visit the presentation in-person or via the online gallery where there will be opportunity to provide feedback that will help shape the future of the DMA," Arteaga added.

The Dallas Museum of Art is focused on better serving the diverse city of Dallas and being a dynamic connector where people of all cultures feel welcomed and embraced. Stronger civic connections will reaffirm the DMA as the anchor of the Dallas Arts District and connect it to surrounding neighborhoods.

Additional flexible gallery space will accommodate a collection that is expanding exponentially. Currently, many masterworks remain in storage, unseen by the public due to lack of space. The program also requires a reorganization of internal space, circulation, and entrances, as well as a comprehensive modernization framed within a thoughtful sustainability strategy. 

Scroll down to see each finalist's design with a short project description by the architects:

Aerial View. Image © David Chipperfield Architects and Malcolm Reading Consultants

Flora Street Courtyard. Image © David Chipperfield Architects and Malcolm Reading Consultants

David Chipperfield Architects, London, UK (The team is supported by HarrisonKornberg Architects (Local Architect); James Corner Field Operations (Landscape Architect); Pentagram (Exhibition Design); Thornton Tomasetti (Structural Engineer); Arup (Services and Lighting); and Atelier Ten (Sustainability)

"Our design concept originates from a profound sense of respect for the existing DMA campus and a desire to deepen its engagement with the energetic qualities of its immediate urban surroundings. An interpretation of the Museum’s most successful qualities has formed the basis of our approach to reimagining a new DMA that is both culturally and socially responsive, and ecologically responsible.

A bold revitalization of the Museum’s external public spaces, from the DMA’s doorstep to its rooftop, creates a stepped landscape that invites visitors to explore and rest, and to encounter artworks, performances, and public events. Inside the Museum, our interventions dramatically transform the DMA’s underwhelming central circulation spaces to create a dynamic and flexible curatorial Street, which is conceived as a seamless continuation of Klyde Warren Park, the Dallas Arts District, and Downtown.

Inside and out, the new DMA is transformed into a vital and accessible topography for the city that expresses and reinforces its cultural, civic, and community value for the people of Dallas."

Aerial from Klyde Warren Park. Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Malcolm Reading Consultants

Kiley Sculpture Garden. Image © Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Malcolm Reading Consultants

Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York, USA (The team is supported by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc. (Landscape Architect); Arup (MEP, Sustainability, and Daylighting Engineer); LERA Consulting Structural Engineers (Structural Engineer); New Affiliates (Exhibition Design); and GFF (Local Architect).

"Edward Larrabee Barnes’s 1984 DMA reflects the values of its time – aloof and sequestered from the everyday lives of Dallas citizens. The new expansion will embrace the public. It will allow the DMA to show its growing collection in new ways, reaching across diverse audiences. It will engage the open sites to the north and south to create two new front doors that bookend the Museum, each visually porous and bustling with activity.

Facing Klyde Warren Park, a new contemporary gallery will cap a civic hub where the lobby, lecture hall, heatre, education space, store, and café converge. This new face of the DMA will be fully visible from the park and the approach up Woodall Rodgers. To the south, a new restaurant and event pavilion will suspend an operable roof that will shade and provide infrastructural support for open-air public programming, while connecting with the Arts District at large."

Eagle Family Plaza. Image © Johnston Marklee and Malcolm Reading Consultants

Flora Street Entrance. Image © Johnston Marklee and Malcolm Reading Consultants

Johnston Marklee, Los Angeles, USA (The team is supported by Christ & Gantenbein (Museum Specialists); MOS Architects (Public Realm); Sam Jacob Studio (Exhibition Design); Hargreaves Jones (Landscape Architect); Buro Happold (MEP and Sustainability Engineer); Walter P. Moore with Martinez Moore Engineers (Structural Engineer); and Kendall/Heaton Associates (Local Architect).

"Our vision for the DMA is of a museum in a garden. A collection of pavilions and courtyards both existing and new, linked by a lively internal street. A place that welcomes and engages its visitors: where art connects with nature, and culture connects with the city.

A museum that is made up of collectives and collections, whose architecture forges connections and dialogues among objects, spaces, and people, between city and museum, between art and life, between old and new.

The new pavilions provide contemporary gallery and event spaces in volumes referring back to the DNA of the DMA. Their vaulted profiles project the Museum’s image of the Museum outwards, articulating the welcoming porosity between city, street, museum circulation, galleries, and gardens. Their materiality articulates a contrasting sensibility: ethereal and light, whose translucency reveals the Museum’s workings to the city beyond."

Ross Avenue View. Image © Michael Maltzan Architecture and Malcolm Reading Consultants

Barrel Vault Welcome Hub. Image © Michael Maltzan Architecture and Malcolm Reading Consultants

Michael Maltzan Architecture, Los Angeles, USA (The team is supported by Studio Zewde (Landscape Architect); Guy Nordenson and Associates (Structural Design Engineer); Buro Happold (MEP Engineer); Atelier Ten (Sustainability); and JSA/MIXdesign (Exhibition Design and Accessibility).

"We believe that the architecture and landscape of the reimagined DMA can weave together the history and the future of both the Museum and Dallas. At the core of our architectural response, we seek to preserve the philosophical aspirations of the original Edward Larrabee Barnes design, modifying it to support the DMA’s evolving requirements.

Its stepped gallery sequence is woven together with a new “superfloor” of gallery and program spaces that float above the treetops of the Arts District. Elevating the galleries enables the transformation of North Harwood Street into a “cultural carpet”, an animated civic landscape that bridges Klyde Warren Park and Downtown. We transform the original inward-looking concourse into a new transparent façade that reveals the vibrant activity of the DMA. Collectively, these changes create a new image of the DMA, one that is open, forward-looking, and reflective of the Museum’s role in the coming century."

Aerial View. Image © Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos and Malcolm Reading Consultants

Ross Avenue Plaza View. Image © Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos and Malcolm Reading Consultants

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, Madrid, Spain (The team is supported by Atelier Culbert (Exhibition Design); SWA Group (Landscape Architect); Arup (MEP, Lighting, and Sustainability Engineer); Bollinger+Grohmann (Structural and Façade Engineer); and PGAL (Local Architect).

"Art inspires the beginning of the architectural project to reimagine the DMA. Claude Monet’s The Water Lily Pond (1903) poetically suggests the reversal of reality in the reflection of water; the lightness of air and clouds versus rootedness in earth and vegetation.

Our proposal acknowledges the presence of the original building and its pivotal role in the development of the Dallas Arts District while proposing significant spatial architectural transformations respectful of its recent history.

The clear architectural scheme by Edward Larrabee Barnes, once conceived as an opaque and compact building, has been overtaken after four decades by the development and implementation of new settings in the Arts District. We propose an open, welcoming, accessible, and inclusive museum, improving and adding new spaces for contemporary art collections.

The reimagined DMA will be a reflection of the original building, transforming the relationship between art, landscape, and community into a balance of memory and innovation."

Kiley Gardens. Image © WeissManfredi and Malcolm Reading Consultants

View from Klyde Warren Park. Image © WeissManfredi and Malcolm Reading Consultants

Weiss/Manfredi, New York, USA (The team is supported by Hood Design Studio (Landscape Architect); WeShouldDoItAll (Exhibition Design); DVDL (Cultural Strategists); Thornton Tomasetti (Structural Engineer); Jaros, Baum & Bolles (MEP/FP Engineer); and Atelier Ten (Sustainability).

"The Dallas Museum of Art is an enduring cultural wonder within the increasingly vibrant Dallas Arts District. We admire the cadence of architecture and landscape central to Edward Larrabee Barnes’s and Dan Kiley’s initial vision, yet the existing building’s opacity and unintuitive orientation conceal the vibrancy of this cultural campus. Our design activates and intensifies reciprocities – architecture and landscape, building and garden, art and community – to construct a new tapestry for the arts.

Through strategic subtraction and luminous additions, our design reinvigorates this elegant but fortified structure to signal a new transparency, both literal and philosophical, that welcomes the entire community. New galleries and gathering spaces, with generous ceilings and filtered natural light, and gardens to the north and south, anchor the urban edges. The visitor sequence culminates in a cantilevered gallery and roof garden overlooking Klyde Warren Park, bringing into focus the DMA’s role as an inspiring and welcoming catalyst to the cultural life of the city."

1. Visit the online gallery through this link, copy-paste this link into your browser: https://competitions.malcolmreading.com/dallasmuseumofart/gallery

Top image (from left to right): David Chipperfield Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Johnston Marklee, Michael Maltzan Architecture, Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, Weiss Manfredi. 

> via Malcolm Reading Consultants 

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