MCASD names architect for expansion

The New York-based architectural firm of Selldorf Architects will design the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diegos planned expansion in La Jolla.

The museums board of trustees unanimously voted to engage Selldorf, a 60-member firm that has received glowing notices for its creation of new gallery spaces (for David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth and Gladstone Gallery) and its renovation of existing spaces in New York (the Neue Galerie). This will be its first time working with a contemporary art museum and its first project on the West Coast.

Selldorf Architects is extremely pleased to have been selected as architects for MCASDs expansion in La Jolla, said firm principal Annabelle Selldorf in a statement. We see tremendous opportunity with MCASDs beautiful site, world-class collection, exhibition program, and rich architectural history as we re-imagine the building for the 21st century.

The Museum of Contemporary Art has long discussed expansion, but the process officially began last year when the board voted to form an architectural selection committee. It seriously considered the qualifications of eight firms, interviewed four (and visited several of their projects) and ultimately decided on Selldorf, who has a reputation for creating structures and spaces that enhance but not upstage the purpose at hand (to quote The Wall Street Journal).

Her work doesnt impose itself, said Hugh Davies, the museums director and CEO. So much architecture, youre aware of the architecture more than youre aware of the art. She has a way of being, not self effacing, but respectful, if you will. She creates beautiful spaces that are at the service of the art.

The museums footprint will be expanded to include properties (now residential but owned by the museum) on both sides of the institution, and the space that now houses Sherwood Auditorium will be reconfigured as a gallery, with potential exhibit space of approximately 8,000 square feet.

it will be a glorious sort of main gallery, Davies said. Its sort of the summation of the other spaces and really creates a central area that should be very well suited to looking at art.

In all, the expansion would add approximately 20,000 additional square feet of exhibit space, tripling the museums La Jolla exhibit space and allowing the museum for the first time to consistently exhibit its widely respected permanent collection of more than 4,500 pieces of 20th and 21st century art, most of it from the U.S. and Mexico.

Davies said the architects expect to have drawings and schematics to the board by September, with the museum then officially launching a fundraising campaign of approximately $50 million, of which $30 million would go toward the expansion and $20 million toward an endowment for the museums operations.

If all goes according to plan, the project could break ground in early 2016.

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MCASD names architect for expansion