Parrish Art Museum Breaks Ground on New Building in Water Mill, New York

Above: Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, Parrish Founding Partner Robert S. Warshaw, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Parrish Trustee Phillip H. Isles, Parrish Trustee Norman L. Peck, Governor David A. Paterson, Parrish Director Terrie Sultan, Congressman Timothy H. Bishop, Parrish Founding Partner Carolina Portago Photo by Richard Lewin

A media conference held at the site featured remarks by Governor David A. Paterson, Congressman Tim Bishop, Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, Parrish Director Terrie Sultan, and Museum Trustees Dorothy Lichtenstein, Norman Peck, and Alexandra Stanton.

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Flexible Design Doubles the Museum's Current Exhibition Space

The New Parrish Art Museum, projected to open in 2012 on fourteen acres in Water Mill, will be the first art museum built on the East End of Long Island in more than a century. Located on the north side of Montauk Highway and designed by world-renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, the new Parrish will be the cultural centerpiece and most recognizable architectural landmark of the region. “This will be a watershed moment not only for the Museum, but also for the community. The new Parrish will offer the entire region and beyond expanded opportunities for seeing, experiencing, and learning about art through our collection of more than 2,600 works and our temporary exhibitions,” notes Parrish Director Terrie Sultan. “With this new building, the Parrish will take its rightful place as a major museum and a center for cultural engagement.”

Consisting of two parallel wings joined by a central circulation spine running the length of the building, the new facility will be nearly twice the size of the existing Museum. The 34,500 square-foot building will feature more than 12,000 square feet of pristine and flexible gallery spaces with some 4,500 square feet for special exhibitions and 7,500 dedicated to installations of the Museum’s important permanent collection. A series of north-facing skylights will allow for natural, north light to be evenly filtered throughout the galleries. “The galleries are the heart and soul of the new Museum,” according to Alicia Longwell, Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator, Art and Education. “Now, for the first time, the Parrish will have the wherewithal to make available on a permanent basis our distinguished collection of American art from the nineteenth century to the present, while simultaneously presenting special exhibitions.”

The Museum will also include educational and multi-purpose spaces, a generous and light-filled lobby, a shop, and a café. The design incorporates administrative offices and onsite space for storage and care of the permanent collection. The exterior walls of poured-in-place concrete are deeply recessed under a long and elegant white corrugated metal roof and incorporate opportunities for views through the Museum and into the surrounding landscape. Covered porches and terraces will provide additional opportunities for enjoyment of the setting.

"It is rewarding to see the Parrish Art Museum breaking ground only one year after the initial conceptual design.  Collaborating closely with local contractors from the beginning made this possible and allowed us to immediately test at full scale our palette of ideas—straight-forward materials and detailing, human scale, overall proportion, and the relation to the natural landscape and daylight,” noted Ascan Mergenthaler, Senior Partner, Herzog & de Meuron.  “We are excited to offer the Long Island community, in two years from now, a generous sequence of northern lit galleries invoking the spirit of the East End artists’ studio. A continuous gathering porch will unify the entire Museum under one roof creating a new building type that connotes the vernacular of local farm buildings."

Like the building itself, the landscape will evoke the heritage of the East End. The site will be reshaped into a meadow with grasses and native wildflowers, rising toward an oak and birch woodland at the northern boundary. A special feature of the new design is the creation of public areas for contemplation and social interaction. Conceived as a single, integrated work, the architecture and landscape will offer the public a unified and cohesive experience year-round.