RMJM Hillier Museum Addition Opens in New Jersey
The wing is anchored by an exhibit designed by Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership.
Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 11/26/2007 12:00:00 AM
A new 20,000-square-foot addition by architecture firm RMJM Hillier is open at Morristown, New Jersey's Morris Museum. Housed in a historic 1913 McKim Mead & White mansion, the museum is now one of the state's largest museums. The renovation and new construction project joins the mansion with the museum's Bickford Theatre.
The new Grand Entrance Pavilion's exterior slatted redwood screen wall melds seamlessly with the modern glass panels and steel accents inside. The Pavilion welcomes visitors and connects to the theater while also serving as an open event space and home to a museum shop.
Pass the pavilion is a new two-story glass atrium that features the entrance to the museum's centerpiece exhibit, "Musical Machines and Living Dolls: Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata from The Murtogh D. Guinness Collection," designed by Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership. The exhibit displays more than 150 of the Murtogh D. Guinness Collection's 700 rare mechanical musical instruments and animated figures from the 19th century while showcasing the newly revealed and restored facade of the mansion. The new wing also provides additional gallery space above the exhibit and, opening in 2008, a viewable storage and resource center for the Guinness Collection.
"Now old and new come together in a very direct way," says Roger Smith, an RMJM Hillier associate and senior designer for the project. "Opposite walls of glass and steel, the museum's historic architecture is now an active part of the museum experience and sets the stage for the innovative [exhibit]."
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