Des Moines, Iowa
The Des Moines Art Center, designed in 1948 by Eliel Saarinen, consisted of a U-shaped single-story gallery plus a double-height gallery to the west terminated by a two-story annex. In 1965 I.M. Pei added a block to the south facing a public park, thereby closing the original U-plan to create an internal sculpture court. The site for this present addition is primarily to the north of this two-stage complex. Because the Saarinen building is visible from the downtown approach, the challenge was to design an addition that would respect the generally horizontal profile of the center. The addition was designed as a series of separate volumes to accommodate the required expansion without producing a large mass. Thus three new additions were located around the existing complex in such a way as to reinforce the formal order of the Saarinen scheme. A new courtyard pavilion strengthens the east-west entry axis of the existing museum. The pavilion accommodates the restaurant and meeting room and activates the previously underused court by opening it to the patio in warm weather. A glass-enclosed link running along the north-south axis connects to the new northern addition, which houses most of the additional gallery space. Volumetrically separate from the Saarinen building, this larger increment is vertically condensed and leaves the preferred view of the existing museum unobstructed. The largest of its three levels is located entirely below grade with slots admitting natural light into the temporary exhibition gallery. The overall plan in this addition derives from a nine-square grid, in which the central square provides a four-column internal atrium lit by clerestory windows and perimeter skylights. This cubic volume is sheathed in granite and covered by a flattened pyramid that serves as a foil to the butterfly-section roof employed by Pei. A third smaller addition accommodating services and additional gallery space above is attached to the west wing of the Saarinen building. In this way the components of the complex designed by Saarinen and Pei were amplified by three discrete additions of different sizes.
一个敏感的添加补充了新一代博物馆参观者的现代主义杰作。
得梅因艺术中心由Eliel Saarinen于1948年设计，包括一个U形单层画廊、一个双高画廊和一个两层楼的附楼。贝聿铭于1965年在南侧增加了一个面向公园的街区，关闭了原来的U型平面，创造了一个内部雕塑庭院。Meier Partners的加入极大地增加了艺术中心的画廊空间，同时尊重了这座历史建筑群的整体设计。
由于从市中心的入口可以看到 Saarinen 大楼，因此面临的挑战是避免干扰中心的水平轮廓。作为回应，增加的部分占据了一系列独立的体积，以适应所需的扩展，而不会产生会影响 Saarinen 设计的单一大质量。一个新的庭院展馆加强了现有博物馆的东西入口轴线，其中设有一家餐厅，在温暖的天气里通过向露台开放它来激活以前未被充分利用的庭院。一条沿着南北轴线的玻璃封闭连接连接到新的北部增建部分，其中容纳了大部分额外的画廊空间。它的三层中最大的一层完全位于地下，有槽让自然光进入临时展览馆，加建的总体规划源自一个九方形网格，这是一种组合策略，允许 Saarinen 和 Pei 设计的建筑被三个不同大小的独立加建物放大和补充。
