13
Anthology
Cultural
January/February 2022
SEAMUS PAYNE
Facing page: An egglike volume clad in white metal panels protrudes from the museum’s south facade. Above: A large canopy punctuates a smaller volume containing a restaurant and events venue.
SEAMUS PAYNE
Florida All-Stars
Far left: Hollow conical forms designate special displays. Left: The museum possesses 40,000 square feet of galleries.
SEAMUS PAYNE
Local talents come together to create a world-class museum.
Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement Architects: Alfonso Architects Location: St. Petersburg, Florida Construction manager: Gilbane Building Company Structural engineer: Walter P Moore MEP and fire protection: VoltAir Consulting Engineers Lighting design: DKT Lighting and Design
On the Florida peninsula’s central west coast, just across the bay from Tampa, is the city of St. Petersburg, a recurring New York Times pick for best places to visit in the world. Indeed, “St. Pete,” as it’s called by locals, has a lot going for it. As the state’s greenest urban center, St. Pete is on track to reach 100 percent renewable energy by 2035. It also boasts a well-established arts community, which has spurred the city’s cultural patrons to invest heavily in pilgrimage-worthy works of architecture. The latest, the Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement (MAACM), is arguably the crown jewel of the bunch. Situated on a 3.2-acre site where downtown meets the Waterfront Arts District, MAACM is the third privately funded cultural institution in St. Pete and houses a renowned collection of American Arts and Crafts objects owned by the Two Red Roses Foundation. Designed by local, Ybor City–based office Alfonso Architects, and brought to life by construction management firm Gilbane, the
137,000-square-foot, $90 million project offers an architecture both sensuous and rational, playful in its suspended white metal shingle– clad geometries and elegant in its proportions and layered, handcrafted materials. The precisely executed detailing never deviates from the overarching design logic; simply put, its consistency and quality are world-class. The hundreds of small and large works on display feel right at home in this gracious and considered context, which is positively spartan compared with the flowery interiors that exemplified the Arts and Crafts movement. Here, each ornate museum piece—be it pottery, block prints, or painted glass—is afforded the opportunity to shine and be marveled at. The greatest challenge for fellow museum nerds, and particularly for museum nerds who happen to be architects, is pacing oneself as one moves through the 40,000 square feet of galleries. A visit is both exhilarating and mentally exhausting, impossible to complete in a single day.
Mottled black venetian plaster marks out critical thresholds throughout the interior, offering a counterpoint to the gleaming white shell—also plaster, but looking for all the world like Calacatta marble—of a sculptural stairway that connects the galleries starting on the second floor. A long stretch of the opening gallery is glazed, allowing visitors to orient themselves prior to immersion in the collection. Elsewhere, small openings punctuate the otherwise-opaque exterior envelope. South-facing windows offer views of an ever-increasing number of residential towers, while those on the opposite end of the building frame a bustling low rise commercial corridor and the Crescent Lake water tower, a local landmark since 1924. On the top floor, afternoon sun falling through a clerestory casts a mesmerizing bar of light across the exhibition space. But one’s itinerary could just as easily begin and end in the soaring full-height atrium, which contains the museum store and a cafe, in addition to administrative offices. From
