Bentonville, Arkansas, isn’t normally on the roster of American destination cities, but the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has changed that. The 93,000-square-foot museum, designed by Moshe Safdie, consists of eight separate pavilions and two bridge-like galleries situated around and traversing a central pond, which feeds into a nearby lake. The architect planned the building as a combined experience of both nature and art, so outdoor landscapes and gardens are interspersed throughout the campus, which is situated at the center of a 120-acre forest lined with pathways.
The museum’s curving, seashell-like structures take their cues from their natural Ozark environs and showcase Safdie’s signature geometric style. Inside, the architect incorporated timber ceilings made of Arkansas white pine, but he also included modernist elements such as skylights, large windows, and concrete walls banded with horizontal wood flourishes.
The amply daylit facility will include paintings from Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Norman Rockwell, Roy Lichtenstein, and many others, and the gallery spaces are designed to reflect the different periods of the curated pieces, which run from the 18th century to the present. The finished building itself might as well be considered a part of the museum’s permanent collection, too. ABQ
The concrete-column façade actually ends up being one of the more subdued elements of the entire museum, but the modern semicircular array rising out of the trees surprises visitors nonetheless and gets their attention before they enter the structure proper.One of George Rickey’s kinetic sculptures (pictured here)—an elaborate piece that moves slowly and gracefully with the wind—stands in an open-air portion of the museum. The venue has a number of groomed landscape areas where additional modern sculptures sit on display, including Roxy Paine’s stainless-steel tree sculpture, which stands guard at the front of the museum (see above). Visitors are meant to experience a smooth flow between the structure’s indoor and outdoor environments, and to that end several walking trails have been built to branch out from the museum into the rest of the property’s 120 forested acres. On these paths, hikers can find still more sculptures, which maintain the sense that almost the entire area is composed of curated space.An intricate flood system protects the museum’s paintings from the threat of rising water. And, between the central pond and an exterior pond, there’s a 12-foot drop that keeps the water flowing north.The museum’s copper roofing, which matches the region’s fall foliage, will slowly develop an aged green patina, which will then fit the surrounding arboreal landscape in spring.Skylights (seen here) allow lines of daylighting to stream through the musuem’s copper and wood roofwork. The complex system of illumination keeps the gallery areas well lit without admitting too much direct sunlight, which can damage paint and fade the coloring of the delicate works of art. At night, a small collection of ceiling lights takes over without overwhelming the space.Wherever possible, architect Moshe Safdie sought to use local materials, including the Arkansas white pine in the museum’s ceiling beams.Glass walls span the venue’s two bridges and overlook the central pond. The windows also look directly at each other, connecting the interiors of the two spaces visually. Additionally, the bases of both bridge sections act as dams, carefully controlling the flow of water from one end of the museum property to the other.
