After a long search for a candidate to provide Buffalo's Albright-Knox Art Gallery with a new extension, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), with its New York office lead partner Shohei Shigematsu, has been selected to expand and refurbish the site. The $80 million scheme – the largest ever initiated by a cultural organisation in western New York – will be the international firm's first art museum designed on US soil.
The project, titled AK360, will enlarge the Albright-Knox, enhancing the visitor experience and helping transform the gallery into a 21st century venue to benefit Buffalo's future generations. The expansion, which is the museum's first in over half a century, will be overseen by Shigematsu. The architect will spend the next year developing ideas with the community and board to formulate a vision for the site.
‘Our selection process sought creative approaches to the challenges of expanding and refurbishing the Albright-Knox,’ says the museum's board president, Tom Hyde. ‘At the top of our list, we were looking for genuine sensitivity to our historic buildings and Olmsted campus, which anchor the increasingly vibrant Elmwood Avenue Cultural District. OMA [and] Shohei Shigematsu have demonstrated their creative approaches to building in complex sites, most recently at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, which also connects parkland and urban landscape.’
The new extension is planned to include numerous state-of-the-art spaces, including a designated area for events, galleries for the display of the museum's world class collection and learning and social areas. The Albright-Knox and Shigematsu will embark upon the next phase of the process this September.
The new extension is set to include numerous state of the art spaces, including a designated area for events and a learning centre.
INFORMATION
For more information, visit OMA’s website
ADDRESS
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
1285 Elmwood Avenue
Buffalo, NY 14222
-
What is the role of fragrance in contemporary culture, asks a new exhibition at 10 Corso ComoMilan concept store 10 Corso Como has partnered with London creative agency System Preferences to launch Olfactory Projections 01
-
Jack White's Third Man Records opens a Paris pop-upJack White's immaculately-branded record store will set up shop in the 9th arrondissement this weekend
-
Designer Marta de la Rica’s elegant Madrid studio is full of perfectly-pitched contradictionsThe studio, or ‘the laboratory’ as de la Rica and her team call it, plays with colour, texture and scale in eminently rewarding ways
-
In ‘The Last Showgirl’, nostalgia is a drug like any otherGia Coppola takes us to Las Vegas after the party has ended in new film starring Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl
-
‘American Photography’: centuries-spanning show reveals timely truthsAt the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Europe’s first major survey of American photography reveals the contradictions and complexities that have long defined this world superpower
-
Sundance Film Festival 2025: The films we can't wait to watchSundance Film Festival, which runs 23 January - 2 February, has long been considered a hub of cinematic innovation. These are the ones to watch from this year’s premieres
-
What is RedNote? Inside the social media app drawing American users ahead of the US TikTok banDownloads of the Chinese-owned platform have spiked as US users look for an alternative to TikTok, which faces a ban on national security grounds. What is Rednote, and what are the implications of its ascent?
-
Architecture and the new world: The Brutalist reframes the American dreamBrady Corbet’s third feature film, The Brutalist, demonstrates how violence is a building block for ideology
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
-
Intimacy, violence and the uncanny: Joanna Piotrowska in PhiladelphiaArtist and photographer Joanna Piotrowska stages surreal scenes at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania
-
First look: Sphere’s new exterior artwork draws on a need for human connectionWallpaper* talks to Tom Hingston about his latest large-scale project – designing for the Exosphere
