The opening of the Pérez Art Museum Miami was the star attraction of this year's Art Basel Miami Beach. It was not only art lovers who flocked to see the new 3000 square-metre gallery by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron (we first visited the Perez in April, when it was still under construction). On the first Sunday of its public opening, the parking lot was overflowing and locals were queuing round the block to take a tour of their newest cultural landmark.
Surrounded by lush tropical planting, the glass and concrete structure is raised on stilts and features a sweeping veranda and hanging columns of plants. Each gallery offers views over bridges, highrises, and expanses of tropical blue water. You couldn't be anywhere other than Miami - which for project architect and senior partner Christine Binswanger, was the point. 'Given the spectacular location, PAMM offers more views than any of the other 14 museums we have built,' she says. 'To balance the intimate and concentrated experience of contemporary art with exposure to the sea and the park was one of the things we wanted to achieve.'
Adds Binswanger: 'We wanted the building to be rough, to feel real, inside and outside, not invent another interesting cladding. Concrete as a structure and a finish has rarely been done around here, and for a museum even less so.' At the Perez Art Museum, It works perfectly. The work of late Cuban painter Amelia Peláez and the hanging steel sculpture of Monika Sosnowska simply pop against the concrete walls.
Until March, Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei (with whom Herzog & de Meuron collaborated on the Beijing 'Bird's Nest' stadium) is the headline act, but the museum has its own permanent collection of 1800 works, many of which are by American and Latin American artists and occupy the two lower levels of the building. A huge, open plan screening area hints at an impressive film programme.
With its extensive greenery, acres of glass and seamless transitions from the outside to the inside, PAMM is the antitheses of the intimidating 'white cube.'
'Museums should be as open as possible to a real variety of attitudes and forms. PAMM can become such a place for everyone,' says Jacques Herzog. Judging by the local Sunday crowds, who were sporting six-inch heels, mini skirts and bikinis and pushing baby strollers, his assertions might just be right.
Surrounded by lush tropical planting, the glass and concrete museum is raised on stilts and features a sweeping veranda and hanging columns of plants. Each gallery offers views over bridges, highrises, and expanses of tropical blue water.
The hanging gardens were designed by Patrick Blanc.
With its extensive greenery, acres of glass and seamless transitions from the outside to the inside, PAMM is the antitheses of the intimidating 'white cube.'
The vertical garden adorning the front facade is one of the museum's key characteristics.
Until March, Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei (with whom Herzog & de Meuron collaborated on the Beijing 'Bird's Nest' stadium) is the headline act. Pictured is his retrospective, 'Ai Weiwei: According to What?'
Other exhibitions occupy the museum's two lower levels.
'Americana: Progressive Forms' is another of the museum's opening shows.
The museum has its own permanent collection of 1800 works, many of which are by American and Latin American artists.
Openings in the museum's facade offer views over Biscayne Bay.
ADDRESS
1103 Biscayne Blvd.
Miami, FL 33132
-
David Goldblatt captures intimate portraits of Johannesburg during apartheidBetween 1948 and 2016, David Goldblatt returned periodically to Fietas, a suburb in the west of Johannesburg’s city centre, to photograph the impact of apartheid legislation on its residents and landscape. The resulting photographs have now been collected and published for the first time
-
Faena New York just landed in the Big Apple – and it's an excuse for a good timeArgentine hotelier Alan Faena’s first New York address serves up high-octane hospitality with a dash of leopard print
-
These vintage American motels will have you longing for the open road‘Vintage Motels’ documents how the humble roadside stopover has evolved into a design-led destination for a new generation of travellers
-
This refined Manhattan prewar strikes the perfect balance of classic and contemporaryFor her most recent project, New York architect Victoria Blau took on the ultimate client: her family
-
The Grand Egyptian Museum – a monumental tribute to one of humanity’s most captivating civilisations – is now completeDesigned by Heneghan Peng Architects, the museum stands as an architectural link between past and present on the timeless sands of Giza
-
Inside a Malibu beach house with true star qualityBond movies and Brazilian modernism are the spur behind this Malibu beach house, infused by Studio Shamshiri with a laid-back glamour
-
An Arizona home allows multigenerational living with this unexpected materialIn a new Arizona home, architect Benjamin Hall exposes the inner beauty of the humble concrete block while taking advantage of changed zoning regulations to create a fit-for-purpose family dwelling
-
Michael Graves’ house in Princeton is the postmodernist gem you didn’t know you could visitThe Michael Graves house – the American postmodernist architect’s own New Jersey home – is possible to visit, but little known; we take a tour and explore its legacy
-
Explore Tom Kundig’s unusual houses, from studios on wheels to cabins slotted into bouldersThe American architect’s entire residential portfolio is the subject of a comprehensive new book, ‘Tom Kundig: Complete Houses’
-
Ballman Khaplova creates a light-filled artist’s studio in upstate New YorkThis modest artist’s studio provides a creative with an atelier and office in the grounds of an old farmhouse, embedding her practice in the surrounding landscape
-
The most important works of modernist landscape architecture in the USModernist landscapes quite literally grew alongside the modern architecture movement. Field specialist and advocate Charles A. Birnbaum takes us on a tour of some of the finest examples
