Peaking through autumnal foliage, the Frederic Church Center for Architecture and Landscape is the newest addition in Upstate New York's historical site of Olana – a generous, leafy expanse of rich natural landscape and eclectic architecture, formerly the home of landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900). Opening this month in Greenport, near Hudson, the contemporary visitor centre designed by New York studio ARO, is the first structure to be added to the precious complex since its original owner was alive.
Explore the Frederic Church Center for Architecture and Landscape at Olana
The visitor centre was designed to be discreet and enrich the guests' experience through its presence within the designated US historical landmark that is the painter's wider estate and its grounds – which were crafted by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects as part of a master planning initiative.
The new building's presence was conceived to feel delicate from the outside, wrapped in glazing that doesn't contrast with the natural backdrop. At the same time, expansive, contemporary interiors cater to the Olana site's growing audience, allowing for orientation and education spaces, tour programmes, a café (due to open in spring 2025), and other services for visitors.
ARO created its design as a mass timber structure, respecting the surrounding nature and as a nod to the numerous, mature trees surrounding the plot. Meanwhile, the expansive glass walls were chosen to be bird-friendly, and are matched by dark red vertical wood siding that similarly echoes the context.
ARO, led by Stephen Cassell, Kim Yao, and Adam Yarinsky, was founded in New York in 1993 and has a slew of accomplished projects under its belt – several of which are in the public and cultural realm, like the Frederic Church Centre, but also including a growing portfolio of private homes such as the Bucks County Home in Pennsylvania.
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper editors have been doing this weekA week of jetsetting has seen the editors in Tokyo, Milan, Vienna, Miami, New York and drinking Guinness with Jonathan Anderson in London
-
The Living Places experiment: how can architecture foster future wellbeing?Research initiative Living Places Copenhagen tests ideas around internal comfort and sustainable architecture standards to push the envelope on how contemporary homes and cities can be designed with wellness at their heart
-
Turin’s Museo Egizio gets an OMA makeover for its bicentenaryThe Gallery of the Kings at Turin’s Museo Egizio has been inaugurated after being remodelled by OMA, in collaboration with Andrea Tabocchini Architecture
-
On a sloped Los Angeles site, a cascade of green 'boxes' offers inside outside livingUnStack, a house by FreelandBuck, is a cascading series of bright green volumes, with mountain views
-
This New York brownstone was transformed through the power of a single, clever moveVoid House, a New York brownstone reimagined by architecture studio Light and Air, is an interior transformed through the power of one smart move
-
A new Texas house transforms a sloping plot into a multi-layered family homeThe Griggs Residence is a Texas house that shields its interior world and spacious terraces with a stone and steel façade
-
Light, nature and modernist architecture: welcome to the reimagined Longwood GardensLongwood Gardens and its modernist Roberto Burle Marx-designed greenhouse get a makeover by Weiss/Manfredi and Reed Hildebrand in the US
-
A bridge in Buffalo heralds a new era for the city's LaSalle ParkA new Buffalo bridge offers pedestrian access over busy traffic for the local community, courtesy of schlaich bergermann partner
-
Tour this Bel Vista house by Albert Frey, restored to its former glory in Palm SpringsAn Albert Frey Bel Vista house has been restored and praised for its revival - just in time for the 2025 Palm Springs Modernism Week Preview
-
First look: step inside 144 Vanderbilt, Tankhouse and SO-IL’s new Brooklyn projectThe first finished duplex inside Tankhouse and SO-IL’s 144 Vanderbilt in Fort Greene is a hyper-local design gallery curated by Brooklyn studio General Assembly
-
Tour Ray's Seagram Building HQ, an ode to art and modernism in New York CityReal estate venture Ray’s Seagram Building HQ in New York is a homage to corporate modernism
