New home for N. Carolina Museum

The Notch Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) recently unveiled plans for a sprawling new building near Raleigh. Designed by New York architect Thomas Phifer, a South Carolina native, the 127,000-square-foot facility will house the museum's permanent collection of over 5,000 objects. Temporary exhibitions are to be held nearby in the museum's existing 1983 structure by Edward Durrell Stone, which will be renovated for the purpose.

Sited on the museum's 164-acre campus, Phifer's vast single-story, 26-foot-high structure will be clad in satin-finish stainless steel intended to softly reflect the sky and surrounding landscape. An undulating roof consisting of a network of vaults and coffers is to be made of fiberglass panels. Each unit, bearing a glass-covered oculus, will allow natural light to flood the exhibition space below. The plan also features a large entrance plaza connecting the new and existing buildings.

The parklike surroundings, newly designed by Berkeley-based landscape architect Peter Walker, will feature a sculpture garden to highlight some of the more than two dozen Rodin bronzes that were recently donated to the museum by the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation. Walker's plan also includes bike trails, walking paths and areas set aside for site-specific works and ecological projects conceived by artists.

The expansion and renovation projects are part of the NCMA's $138-million capital campaign, initiated with a $52.2-million grant from the North Carolina state legislature and $15 million in city and county funds. Construction this fall with begins an opening scheduled for spring 2009.

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