Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd

Perez Art Museum

Perez Art Museum
© Daniel Azoulay

PEREZ ART MUSEUM

Herzog & De Meuron

PLUMBING
Doral, Jalrw

FIRE PROTECTION
Doral, Jalrw

WOOD CONSULTANT
Stephen Smulski

MANUFACTURERS
Ductal®, Jakob, Guardian Glass

CIVIL ENGINEERING
Ada Engineering, Doral, Fl

HVAC ENGINEERING
Arup

ASSOCIATE
Charles Stone

STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
Arup, Coral Gables, Douglas Wood Engineers

CODE CONSULTANT
Schirmer Engineering, White Plains

LIGHTING CONSULTANT
Arup

PARTNERS IN CHARGE
Jacques Herzog, Pierre De Meuron, Christine Binswanger

DESIGN CONSULTANT
Herzog & De Meuron

LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Geo Architectonica

ACOUSTICS
Harvey Marshall Berling Associates

VERTICAL TRANSPORTATION
Jenkins & Huntington

SUSTAINABILITY CONSULTANT
Transsolar Energietechnik Gmbh

ASSOCIATE, PROJECT MANAGERS
Kentaro Ishida, Stefan Hoerner

COST CONSULTANT
Stuart-lynn Company

PROJECT TEAM
Masato Takahashi, Daekyung Jo, Jeremy Purcell, Joana Anes, Adriana Mueller, Roman Aebi, Nils Sanderson, Ida Richter Braendstrup, Hugo Moura, Günter Schwob, Valentine Ott, Sunkoo Kang, Wei Sun, Yuichi Kodai, Silja Ebert, Mehmet Noyan, Margarida Castro, Jayne Barlow, Jack Brough, Jason Frantzen, Dara Huang, Ahmad Reza Schricker, Yuko Himeno

EXECUTIVE ARCHITECT
Handel Architects

HANGING GARDENS
Patrick Blanc

CONCRETE CONSULTANT
Reginald Hough

FABRIC CONSULTANT
Michele Rondelli

FACADE ENGINEERING
Front

SECURITY CONSULTANT
Lane Consultants

AREA
11125 M²

SITE AREA
14221 Sqm

YEAR
2013

LOCATION
Miami, United States

CATEGORY
Museum

The new Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is located in Museum Park, part of the redeveloping downtown waterfront on Biscayne Bay.

Perez Art Museum
© Iwan Baan
Perez Art Museum
© Iwan Baan

Its direct neighbours are the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science and a major freeway, connecting mainland Miami with Miami Beach. Simultaneously oriented towards the park, the water and the city, the new PAMM is an open and inviting structure from all sides alike.

Miami is known for its iconic art deco district, decorated boxes with no great relationship and exchange between inside and outside.

What makes Miami so extraordinary however, is its amazing climate, lush vegetation and cultural diversity. How can these assets be fully exploited and translated into architecture?

As in previous examples of our work, such as the Dominus Winery in Napa Valley, the building’s environmental circumstances become central to its architectural concept. Due to its proximity to the water, the museum is lifted off the ground for the art to be placed above storm surge level.

We use the space underneath the building for open-air parking, exposed to light and fresh air thatcanalso handle storm-water runoff.

Perez Art Museum
© Oriol Tarridas
Perez Art Museum
© Oriol Tarridas

Rising from the parking level, the stilts supporting the museum platform become columns supporting a shading canopy.

Which covers the entire site creating a veranda-like public space that welcomes visitors to the museum and the park. Facing the bay, a wide stair connects the platform to the waterfront promenade.

Perez Art Museum
© Oriol Tarridas

In this exceptional location, we wanted the museum to offer generous views to the outside. Yet all the building’s expansive windows are recessed, with wooden planks under the concrete beams to minimize the sun’s impact on the glazing and to reduce the building’s energy consumption for cooling. Tropical plants selected for their resilience to the local conditions engulf the structural system.

Roof and plants combined will create an overall microclimate reducing the extreme temperature gaps between outside and inside in the hot weather. The exterior surface of the museum’s massive concrete walls is chiseled in places and polished in others. When adjacent to the glazing, the concrete is smooth and reflective. When facing the outside, the concrete becomes rough, exposing its natural ingredients.

Perez Art Museum
© Oriol Tarridas

Rather than being an isolated “jewel box” (Schatzkammer) for art lovers and specialists, the museum provides comfortable public space for everybody.

It is an extension of the park, offering gradual transitions from the outside to the inside, from the warm to the cool, from the humid to the dry and from the street to the art.

Perez Art Museum
© Oriol Tarridas
Perez Art Museum
© Daniel Azoulay

The expression of the building comes from the canopy, the platform, the columns, the vegetation: in other words, the Veranda occupying the entire site. The museum’s interior volume nests within it, suspended amid the structural framework, each floor assuming the shape it needs.

Because the galleries did not have to fit into any given form, we had the freedom to develop the curatorial layout, in close collaboration with the museum staff, to what felt like an optimal configuration to exhibit and develop the growing collection as well as to provide ample space for temporary exhibitions.

Perez Art Museum
© Oriol Tarridas
Perez Art Museum
© Iwan Baan

PAMM is organised around four different gallery types: Overview, Focus, Project and Special Exhibition galleries. They occupy part of the first and the entire second floor. The Overview galleries, displaying the museum’s collection, serve as the connecting tissue between the other gallery types.

Fluidly connected in a non-linear sequence, they allow relationships to be formed between spaces. They are characterized by large openings with views onto the park, downtown Miami, the bay and the freeway. 

Along this flowing sequence of rooms, single enclosed spaces punctuated by windows show an individual artist, a theme, a specific collection or a commissioned work. These spaces are called Focus and Project galleries.

Perez Art Museum
© Iwan Baan

The fourth type, the Special Exhibitions galleries function as spacious exhibition halls designed to accommodate contemporary art exhibitions. The Overview, Focus and Project galleries form a firm and rhythmic sequence through the building, varying in proportion and relationship to the outside. 

On the other hand, the Special Exhibitions galleries are flexible, with fewer openings to the outside and can be subdivided by temporary walls. The spaces at PAMM and their materiality are very specific. They can be considered an antithesis to the flexible, abstract white cubes that have been a dogma in most recently built art spaces.

Perez Art Museum
Courtesy of Arcophotos

Concrete and wood are used in different combinations, reflecting the outside materials of the building. Typical drywalls are detailed in a way that they are legible as added to the main structure.

In order to enhance the inside-out transition, we designed a customized concrete mullion system that holds the largest ever-used hurricane-proof glass in Florida.

Perez Art Museum
Courtesy of Arcophotos

At the heart of the building, a stair as large as a gallery connects the two exhibition levels. This stair also functions as an auditorium, using sound-insulating curtains in different configurations to provide space for lectures, film screenings, concerts and performances. Our idea was to avoid for such events to be isolated in a space remaining unused for most of the time.

At PAMM, events in preparation are visible. When the space is not actively used for events, it is used by visitors and staff for individual readings, introductions to groups and the like. The museum shop and bistro are located on the platform level and are oriented to the bay.

Education and research facilities are on the third floor along with the museum’s offices. We place these communal spaces at the periphery of the building, maximizing their exposure to the Veranda, Biscayne Bay, and Museum Park.

Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd
T +41 61 3855757 F +41 61 3855758
Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd
Rheinschanze 6, 4056 Basel, Switzerland