Raleigh Contemporary Art Museum (CAM)

Pugh + Scarpa Architects, a Nationally Award-Winning firm in Santa Monica, California, was chosen last year as the design architect for Raleigh’s forthcoming Contemporary Art Museum. CAM was founded in 1983, and entered a public/private partnership with NC State and City of Raleigh in 2006. Local Raleigh firm Clearscapes will serve as the architect of record.

click the image for slideshow

Pugh + Scarpa has just released design concepts for the new building on their website. The project is only in the predesign phase, so please note that these designs are not final, and represent conceptual directions that the museum may choose to pursue.

The building has two primary formal elements: the mixed use base includes gallery spaces, an educational component, retail, and a rooftop sculpture garden; the residential element—that’s right, condominiums—is represented as a tower whose formal expressions “draw inspiration from the seed bud of the magnolia tree.“ The base element responds to the street, visually addressing automobile traffic, while inviting the pedestrian into the heart of the complex. The residential “seed bud” is reminiscent of Herzog and de Mueron’s Olymic Stadium for Beijing 2008, in its language and contemporary structural expressionism.

Learn more about CAM at their website.

See Pugh + Scarpa’s design statement.

Image credits: Pugh + Scarpa Architects

Clearscapes

jason09/27 12:20 AM

is that a giant pinecone on top?

brian09/27 01:05 AM

Better a pinecone than one more g.d. acorn.

go go girl09/27 10:07 AM

They have got to be joking. IMO that “seed bud of the magnolia tree” is ridiculous. I think it will be a dated, obsolete eye-sore two days after it is completed.

On the other hand it would certainly draw people to the district just to see what the hell that damn thing is.

I think I’d rather have another acorn. Or a very large squirrel.

David09/27 10:22 AM

I think the structure would be a fantastic addition to downtown in that form. I realize it would be a hard sell, but we need more unique and identifying structures- it would help carve out a unique skyline and it would be appropriate to mark a building that is full of modern art.

erin09/27 10:38 AM

oh no! somebody dropped their beehive on the model right before they were photographing it. when will people realize you can make a stand-out building without tacking on some crazy shape. in an area of BIG BRICK BUILDINGS (i.e. warehouse district) i think just the base of this building would stand out a lot and draw people to it. can you occupy the beehive? whats its purpose other than ornamentation? can birds nest in it? does that mean its green?

Cindy09/27 11:52 AM

I don’t know, it is still a design concept…I like the idea of something really different and ‘out-of-the-box’. I just googled some other contemporary art museums and there are some oddities out there. Just the fact that this is happening here is pretty cool. I’d like to something stand out among the brick buildings…

David09/27 12:03 PM

Me too Cindy. Whats wrong with something wild, fun even, downtown. European cities have tons of traditional architecture blended with wild new stuff. I would much prefer these concepts to some goofy fake traditional look or completely lifeless box.

go go girl09/27 12:50 PM

I agree that something “wild, fun, different and out-of-the-box” is an appropriate goal, particularly for a modern art museum. Iconic buildings are a wonderful addition to any city.

And I strongly agree that the “fake, goofy, traditional” stuff is making Raleigh look more than a bit trite in places.

I just don’t think Marge Simpson’s hair is the way to go. But I could be wrong.

Chad09/27 01:45 PM

Whatever form this finally takes it will hopefully serve as an iconic structure and should help encourage some interesting advancements to the warehouse district. I prefer the third scheme (the rectangular apartment unit).

r o b09/27 02:49 PM

The expression of forms feel like they should be reversed to me. The gallery space should be the irregular/sculptural form beause of the things being put inside and the flexibility associated with those spaces. Having a residential component in an oddly shapped space will be hard to furnish and layout efficiently.

RaleighRob09/27 03:23 PM

I’m all for the goofy wild stuff that’s unusual to be built in downtown, too. But of all parts of a magnolia to put on the building, the seed has got to be the least interesting. The flower or leaves would be nicer wouldn’t it?

Jedidiah09/27 04:02 PM

The fact that each of you is creating a name for this building is proof that it is somewhat intriguing to each of you. This may or may not be the final form, but it seems that everyone wants to call it by their own name.

Why don’t we do this more for items of “architecture” in Raleigh that deserve to be slapped by their horrible design, like stucco cornices (every condo building in Raleigh), red brick on most buildings, cookies and cream concrete (RBC), etc. etc.

We need this building in downtown Raleigh, whatever shape it is. Remember Bilbao when Gehry’s building first landed. Now think what Bilbao has done with the itself over the years. I am not comparing this building to the Guggenheim but the fact that we need better design that isn’t just a box in downtown Raleigh. We need distinguishable forms of architecture if we are going to move into the 21st century of design at some point.

The buildings in this city blend in too much with the surroundings creating too much complacency. We need variability and hopefully CAM will create this.

That said, I’ll get back on rendering some images of CAM.

Jedidiah09/27 04:09 PM

Also, the program of the building will be ground floor retail and museum shop, second floor Contemporary Art Museum, and tower (whatever shape name you call it) would be residential.

TR09/27 05:10 PM

The eifel tower is an eyesore.

lauren09/28 12:17 AM

I think the building feels a bit unresolved- perhaps if it wasn’t just a beehive tacked on to an otherwise typical modernist-style museum, we’d all feel differently. I like both pieces for separate reasons, just not together in that way.

Robin09/28 01:38 AM

All new buildings are unresolved in the predesign phase.

At first, when I saw that image of the model, I thought it was a picture of a contemporary work of art. When I realized it represented a structure in which to experience contemporary art, I thought, ok, why not? Artists have the opportunity to just say, “why not?“ much more than architects. Maybe if we let some architects have some fun (on this scale) here in Raleigh, others will follow. And that could be fun for all of us.

Doc09/28 02:39 AM

Raleigh is in dire need of exciting new buildings downtown! The two towers on Fayetteville St. are the most conservative, early-90’s-looking buildings to ever form a city skyline.

It’s the people who moan about anything that is different that are holding Raleigh back from having a real downtown.

Listen, I don’t think the “seed” is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen but I do think it would look pretty cool through the trees outside of downtown if it was really a “tower”.

It’s way cooler than the base of the building. The base reminds me of all the other buildings downtown.

It’s a contemporary art museum, people. Raleigh’s not a small town anymore. Get over it. You’re not the boss of it and nobody is.

Sam09/28 12:32 PM

Form Form Fun Form? What is smart about this building? I want some intellectual rigor here. What is driving the polycentric-net-blob scheme, how is this form derived, what unseen forces in the warehouse district are making this happen? What is the context? I am not advocating a literal contextual translation but something interpretive, abstract and maybe if we are lucky something witty that amuses us like modern art. Unfortunately Raleigh would probably accept Gehry’s wads of t.p., especially if it comes in a Tiffany box. The so called “Bilboa Effect” just isn’t that effective. Bilboa is lame, I’d take Raleigh any day.

Dan09/28 12:48 PM

The Hipster Hive?

Jedidiah09/28 12:50 PM

It would be awesome to have a bar at the bottom called: Hive Bar.

the truth06/06 08:55 PM

too bad that this will never be realized because of bureaucratic red tape and a complete lack of vision for this potentially great city.

im pretty sure it will end up a garden beside a brick box.

joshua06/08 12:58 PM

i’d be down for this. raleigh is in dire need of some defining buildings. and having seen the new stadium in beijing, its clear that some non linear thinking can really advance a city.

but looks like this is the latest iteration: http://www.newraleigh.com/articles/archive/raleigh-contemporary-art-museum-4/
i’d agree with the comment that this iteration is commendable for trying to embrace the warehouse feel. but the exterior doesn’t reel me in like a hive would.

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Mark Thursday, September 27, 2007