Which of the Dallas Museum of Art’s 6 dramatic expansion plans should win?

The Dallas Museum of Art asked for a reinvention, and boy is it going to get one. The six architectural teams competing to design its expansion have put forward their visions, and all would dramatically transform the institution, both in its internal functioning and in its relationship to the city. As the adage goes, be careful what you wish for. The designs leave the museum with the challenge of balancing its grand ambitions with the value it places on its own history and the realities of its pocket book.

“What we’re seeing is really striking and aspirational,” says Agustín Arteaga, the museum’s director. “What we want to do is make an accessible place where everyone feels welcome.”

An exhibition of the competing proposals is on view at the museum and will remain open to the public until a winner is selected, which the museum promises by the end of the summer.

News Roundups

Catch up on the day's news you need to know.

Email Address

By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

SUBMIT

The six designs suggest new directions for the DMA and offer a snapshot of the state of architecture, and of museum design in particular. There is beauty in each of these proposals, but all move beyond the flamboyant starchitectural gestures ushered in a quarter century ago by Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao, and exemplified here in Dallas by the Morphosis-designed Perot Museum.

Instead, the architecture of these proposals acts more as a stage and backdrop for civic activity and for the display of art.

Although the design teams are headlined by architects, they are composed of groups of professionals (landscape architects, engineers, environmental specialists, exhibition designers) who reflect the collaborative nature of practice today. Four of the architectural teams were founded by male-female life partners. Still, all of the architectural principals are from the global north, and a significant majority are white.

“The mindset of inclusion was there for all the architects,” says Gowri Sharma, president of the museum’s board of trustees. “It’s not just who they are but how they work.”

Whichever proposal is selected, it will remake the museum as a more logical, brighter and open place, one that far better engages with the urban landscape. All would redesign the dreary entry plaza facing Woodall Rodgers, blessedly removing auto traffic from that space and opening it up to Klyde Warren Park. So too would each rethink the museum’s tedious and dim central spine.

The most conservative of the schemes comes from David Chipperfield, the reigning Pritzker Prize laureate and, perhaps not coincidentally, the only of the competitors to engage in cult-of-the-solo-genius pretensions, with a video depicting him ponderously sketching out his vision.

In a project statement, the London-based architect writes of his “profound respect” for the museum’s Edward Larrabee Barnes campus, and indeed he leaves more of it intact than any of his competitors. The strongest feature of his design is a roof terrace that would look over the remade plaza facing Klyde Warren Park. Less convincing is an awkwardly placed stepped amphitheater that would occupy a large portion of that plaza, cutting it off from the surrounding landscape. The proposal, throughout, privileges stepped spaces and circulation areas, an accessibility problem for both those with disabilities and the museum’s (many) older patrons.

By contrast, the most radical of the proposals comes from the team led by Los Angeles-based Michael Maltzan. “At the core of our architectural response, we seek to preserve the philosophical aspirations of the original Edward Larrabee Barnes design,” writes Maltzan. The philosophical aspirations may remain, but a lot of Barnes’ actual building goes, in a process the architect describes as “selected removal.”

The extractions make room for a “superfloor,” a contiguous space that ramps through the remade museum. The removals also make way for what Maltzan calls a “cultural carpet,” an undulating landscape introduced along Harwood Street, activating what is now an under-used corridor. Among the project’s more appealing features is a snaking gallery that would sit on what is now the barren Ross Avenue plaza, providing an entry route to the museum.

The proposal from the Weiss/Manfredi team is almost as aggressive in its treatment of the extant campus, boasting of “strategic subtraction and luminous additions” that would “signal a new transparency.” Among the spaces that would become more open is the landmark sculpture garden designed by the revered modernist landscape architect Dan Kiley. The remade garden would be transformed from a serene place for contemplating art into a communal meeting space, a prospect that would (and should) alarm preservationists.

Adjacent to the garden, a large event pavilion would be erected on the Ross Avenue plaza. It is a questionable use of that space, putting what will be an intermittently occupied venue for private functions on a privileged public corner.

The proposal is more winning on its opposite side, where a welcoming, landscaped garden will open the museum up to Klyde Warren Park. Cantilevered dramatically out over this space is a “loft” gallery faced in fritted and etched glass — a potentially stunning gesture. Within, the galleries would be linked by a limpid “ascending loop” running through the building’s core.

The proposal by the Diller Scofidio + Renfro team would also cantilever a gallery for contemporary art over a plaza facing Klyde Warren Park, that structure being an enormous box with a row of north-facing monitor skylights projecting from its roof. It is both the chunkiest and clunkiest of the proposals, with a thickly framed podium structure facing the park.

More appealing is the remaking of the Ross Avenue plaza as a terrace covered by an “operable” louvered sunscreen (similar to that at the Winspear), which would lead into a restaurant and event space. This would make for a generous new entrance, though the museum should be extremely wary of the potential costs and headaches of any mechanized system.

There is nothing — nothing — clunky about the proposal from the team led by the Spanish firm Nieto Sobejano. “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,” reads the firm’s statement.

Their proposal would enclose the remade museum behind façades of punched white metal, screens that would glow from within. A sheer, white gallery box would be set back above that front façade. Everywhere, the design is sharp-edged and clear, an exercise in reductive rationality. The Ross Avenue plaza would be remade with a stepped amphitheater leading into a lower level of the museum, a more logical arrangement than Chipperfield’s proposal for a similar feature. If there is one obvious flaw in the design it is the rather uninspired escalator bank that would be a primary means of access in the otherwise pristine lobby.

Equally striking is the proposal from the team led by Los Angeles-based Johnston Marklee, which perhaps best balances a respect for the museum’s historic design with contemporary demands.

The proposal adopts Barnes’ distinctive barrel vault, here placing two new ones at the north and south ends of a skylit arcade that runs the length of the building. Translucent new entry pavilions would face both Klyde Warren Park and Ross Avenue, enclosed by screens of woven metal. A dramatic, coiling stair is just one means of traveling through the levels of the building. Like several of the teams, they have removed the fountain and driveway that have occupied the original Barnes entry facing Flora Street, creating an inviting space for people rather than cars.

All of these proposals promise environmentally sustainable systems and materials, but evaluating just how extractive or costly these might be from the limited presentations is virtually impossible. It will be incumbent on the museum to investigate the impacts of whatever it builds, and to make that information public.

It will also need to answer exactly how it will pay not only for the construction of its new facilities, but also for the (dramatically) increased costs of maintaining it and the expanded programs it will support. As it stands, the museum is asking the city for $36 million from the next bond package, to be used solely for infrastructural costs; the balance of the expansion budget, estimated at $150 million to $175 million, would be raised from private sources, the museum says.

That is a lot to consider, beyond choosing an architectural team, which is difficult enough. The good news is that there are too many good options, not too few.