University of Texas at Austin, Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art

Austin, Texas

Firm

Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Architects

Client

University of Texas at Austin

Area

120,000 sq.ft.

Total Cost

$58,000,000

Completion Date

05/2006

The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art is in a cultural precinct where the urban grids of Austin and the university intersect to inform the geometry of this two-building complex. The site also establishes a dynamic gateway—a threshold between city and campus.
A beautifully landscaped pedestrian plaza captures the visual axis of the state capitol and serves as the center for the museum complex.
The gallery building is organized around a dramatically shaped atrium, connecting ground-floor galleries and a monumental stair ascending to the second gallery floor above, which organizes the galleries into two rings. The frequent connections between the smaller and larger galleries provide numerous processional options to personalize the viewer’s art experience. A unifying architectural language of wall and vaulted ceiling shapes further integrate these galleries.
The scale, proportion and figuration of the exterior facades are sympathetic to the language and nobility of Paul Cret and Cass Gilbert’s architectural work at the university and use the same indigenous materials: Texas “red radiant” granite, various Texas limestones and red clay roofing tiles.