In Iowa, a Modern Museum for the Masses
The 100,000-square-foot museum opens August 6.
Meaghan O'Neill -- Interior Design, 4/25/2005 12:00:00 AM
Enclosed in a shell of fritted glass, a new building leads the downtown revitalization of a city not so well-known for its inclination to modernism--Davenport, Iowa. Designed by London- and Berlin-based architect David Chipperfield, the new Figge Art Museum, situated among its brick stone neighbors on the banks of the Mississippi River, is not only the architect’s first free-standing building in the U.S., it’s also the centerpiece of the city’s $113 million waterfront revitalization initiative.
The museum’s exterior varies in translucence and opacity. The double-glass skin cladding the façade controls light and temperature, and appears to dance as light bounces off the river. At 100,000 square feet, the $42 million new museum, in a new location, is triple the size of the old facility, formerly known as the Davenport Museum of Art. Originally founded in 1925, it was the first regional art museum in the state.
"The building's façade is transparent, but it also reflects the river," says Linda Downs, executive director of the Figge. "It's an attempt to attract people, but it also relates to the history of the community, which turned its back on the river, but is now returning to it."
With a growing permanent collection that already includes more than 3,000 pieces--from Regionalist works by Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton to extensive Haitian and Mexican Colonial collections--the Davenport Art Museum was bursting at the seams by the late 1990’s, and much in need of an upgrade. At that time, a capital campaign began. Funding came from the state, city, private donations, and the arts-supportive Figge Foundation--the founders of which the museum has been renamed for. The hefty $12 million donation from the foundation spurred the museum's transition from a public to a private facility and the construction of bigger digs.
Now, more than half of the new building’s 100,000 square feet, open to the public August 6, is dedicated to community-centered programming. In addition to the mix of galleries--which includes a special area dedicated to the work of regional artists--educational spaces, and public amenities abound. Integral to the new space are orientation spaces; “learn-to-look” galleries with rotating installations for communicating art appreciation, connoisseurship, and art history; studio classrooms; a library and resource center; a family activity center; and an auditorium. Visitors can dine at the restaurant, shop at the requisite museum store, and enjoy splendid views of the Mississippi from a two-story winter garden.
FAM will host special exhibitions and organize and develop traveling exhibitions of its own. The first such exhibit, “The Great American Thing: Modern Art and National Identity, 1915-1935,” will premiere on September 17, shortly after the reopening of the museum. Like the mission of FAM itself, the exhibition links movements in art, culture, and civic identity--the same elements considered critical to the institution’s history and local roots.
The new museum is intended to help “revitalize the cultural landscape of the area,” drawing locals and tourists alike to the riverfront, according to Downs, who was formerly education director at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. before moving to Iowa.
"People here were very skeptical about the new design at first,” says the executive director, who arrived in Davenport the day before groundbreaking. “But it's a very active glass box--deceivingly simple, yet elegant in color, space, and material. Now, people love it."
Photo: Courtesy of Figge Art Museum, © Donald Retherford
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