Modern Art Wing

Expansion Paints Gritty Canvas of Chicago with Parisian Cachet

by Pamela Dittmer McKuen

The Art Institute of Chicago is gaining a hoped-for masterpiece with the addition of its new Modern Wing by the internationally acclaimed Renzo Piano. It’s an architectural endeavor that centralizes the museum’s most recent creative works and increases total gallery space to nearly 1 million sq ft.

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“What we’re about is displaying as much of our collections as we can, and we don’t have space in our existing building,” says Erin Hogan, the museum’s director of public affairs. “The Modern Wing gives us a venue for four important departments modern art, contemporary art, architecture and design and photography and allows us to refresh the entire museum. And we’re thrilled to be working with someone of Renzo Piano’s caliber.” (The museum has about 260,000 items, although like most encyclopedic collections, only a small percentage is on view at any given time.)

Piano, whose offices are in Paris and Genoa, Italy, is a 1998 Pritzker Prize-winning architect whose accomplishments include the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris and the Kansai International Airport terminal in Osaka, Japan.

The new three-story, 260,000-sq-ft wing is under construction at the northeast corner of Monroe Street and Columbus Drive, where the Goodman Theatre made its home until relocating to the Central Loop in 2000. Galleries will showcase artists from the 20th Century forward, such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman and David Hockney. Also included in the plans are educational facilities, a restaurant, gift shop and 12,000-sq-ft garden and sculpture court.

The wing is registered for LEED silver-level certification.

The total budget for the project is $350 million, which includes $265 million for renovations and infrastructure upgrades throughout the existing museum. The rest of the funding is coming from $85 million in endowment funds. Completion is scheduled for summer 2009.

Evoking Chicago, the Midwest

The entire project was designed to blend into its immediate and broader surroundings, while simultaneously creating an optimal environment for the art. The wing’s facade of Indiana limestone, glass and steel and rectilinear form reference both Midwestern resources and Chicago’s Modern-style architecture.

It also converses easily with another Chicago hallmark across the street, Millennium Park. The north and south walls are sheathed in double-layered glass to help meet proper temperature and humidity conditions, and the north wall captures dramatic vistas of the park and skyline beyond.

A two-story glass entrance on Monroe Street gives the museum a second and decidedly modern “front door” that contrasts with the Beaux Arts architecture of the main building on Michigan Avenue.

Connecting the two is the 630-ft-long Nichols Bridgeway. The open-air pedestrian bridge is 15 ft wide and gently slopes from the third floor, across Monroe Street and down to the Chase Promenade in Millennium Park. Also on Monroe Street are two Piano-designed pavilions with entrance to the underground parking garage.

The museum’s landscape architect is Seattle-based Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd., which led the design of the Lurie Garden, also in Millennium Park.

Groundbreaking took place in January 2006, with the Chicago office of New York-based Turner Construction Co. handling construction management. The former Goodman was demolished (and the debris was recycled), and then excavation began for the partial basement 40 ft below average grade.

A robust earth-retention system, with lots of cross braces and corner braces, was necessary because the soil was so loosely compacted. That’s because, like much of the lakefront, the site was created with fill after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

“The good news was that we were able to determine from old construction drawings the museum had in its archives that the north wall was built as an earth-retaining wall, and we were able to reuse it,” says Greg Mulac, Turner project executive. “That avoided some sheeting we would have to put in.”

Another consideration was that loud, jarring activity and there was plenty of it could be dangerous for delicate artifacts inside the museum, says Nick Canellis, Turner senior project manager.

As a preventive measure, Turner developed a vibration monitoring system to gage the amount of disturbance caused during various operations. For example, a piece of demolition equipment was first tested 100 ft from the building and gradually moved forward as the readings allowed, Canellis says.

“When we reached a certain limit, we’d say stop and go for the next smaller piece of equipment,” he adds.

‘Flying Carpet’

The most striking architectural feature is what Piano has dubbed the “flying carpet,” a sunscreen that appears to hover above the new wing.

Measuring 209 by 216 ft, it is a metallic-colored, extruded-aluminum shield attached by posts to the glass roof. The shield captures natural light and diffuses it into the third-floor gallery, protecting it from harmful ultraviolet rays. A daylight-linked interior lighting system automatically adjusts incandescent fixtures to compensate for varying light levels.

“The masts that hold up the flying carpet are quite small,” the museum’s Hogan says. “It’s airy and light, almost like it is suspended.”

The sunscreen was fabricated in pieces in Turkey, shipped to Chicago and assembled onsite using concealed bolts. Two tower cranes, with a maximum capacity of 39,670 lbs each, flew the screen into place.

“We didn’t need a lot of height,” Canellis says. “It was more about the reach.”

Working with design leadership in another country and across an ocean has been interesting and even fun for the construction team.

Language isn’t the problem; English is a common tongue in the design community. Turner works closely with Chicago-based architect of record Interactive Design, and Piano is in town regularly.

International Flair

It’s the time zones that have to be noted when questions arise or speedy approvals are needed.

“We send them questions at 5 p.m., and we have an answer at 8 a.m., because they are working on it during our night,” Canellis says. “If we want conference calls, everyone seems to work long hours.”

Because of the intricacies and synergies of Piano’s specs, subcontractors are vested far beyond their specializations. The design is so intricate that the pieces of the puzzle tie together. Indeed, Turner execs and some of their subs have logged frequent flyer miles to tour projects and factories.

“We’ve been able to see a good part of the world,” Canellis says. “Renzo took us to see his projects in France and Switzerland to get a feel for his work. We traveled to Fort Worth (Texas), and we took groups of subcontractors to New York. There is a big emphasis put on understanding Renzo’s style and what he is trying to do.” Visits were made to the Nasher Sculpture Center in Fort Worth and the Morgan Library in New York.

“As early on as drilling the caissons, we’re thinking about how that work will ultimately manifest itself with the drywall, the flooring and the paintings,” Mulac says. “That’s how Renzo works: The structure ties to the finishes. That’s what we’ve had to communicate to our subcontractors, and to involve them in the coordination of a lot of details that, frankly, they wouldn’t be involved in on a regular project.”

For the museum, it’s business as usual, although a bit hectic at times. While the new construction goes on outside, the existing facility is seeing climate control upgrades and new galleries and floors and paint. Some galleries are turned into temporary storage quarters and restored when other areas are complete.

“Every part of the collection will gain gallery space, so we’re basically re-hanging the entire museum,” Hogan says. “A lot of museums have moved their collections to other cities or they close for a few months.”

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