Penn State’s new Palmer Museum of Art won’t open until the spring of 2024, but you can take a detailed look inside and out right now.
A newly released fly-through animation, produced in collaboration with Allied Works and the Brooklyn Digital Foundry, offers an immersive 3D view of the museum’s new home currently under construction next to the Arboretum.
The two-and-a-half-minute video explores the $85 million facility, 71,254-square-foot facility that will double the museum’s exhibition space to 20 galleries.
“The fly-through animation brings the essence of the new museum building to life and reveals the strategic goal to connect art, nature and architecture,” Palmer Museum Director Erin Coe said in a statement. “It accurately captures many of the distinguishing architectural features and finishes, including the beautifully variegated sandstone cladding, the metal lenses on the windows and the interlocking and meandering design of the new building that both contains works of art and frames views of nature, providing visitors with a sense of wonder and wellbeing as they journey through the Museum, as if they were strolling through the grounds of the Arboretum.”
Penn State’s Board of Trustees approved final plans for the new building in May 2021 and construction began last July, followed by a ceremonial groundbreaking in August.
In addition to galleries, the new museum will have educational spaces, a store, cafe, an event space that opens onto a courtyard with a view of the Arboretum, outdoor terraces and sculpture paths.
The building will have two wings clad in local stone. The larger wing on the west side is for the galleries and museum support spaces, while the east wing will have administrative and educational facilities.
The wings have open space between them offering a view directly into the Arboretum and are connected on the second level by an enclosed walkway. It is designed to connect to the landscape with indoor and outdoor courtyards and be a gateway to the Arboretum.
With more space for educational opportunities and its location off of Park Avenue away from central campus, university officials have said the new facility will be more accessible and increase visitations.
The new museum is part of a vision for a cultural district, first presented by former Penn State President Eric Barron to the Board of Trustees in 2016, to be developed at the Arboretum, with the potential for other university museums to relocate to facilities on the site with a new STEM museum, performance spaces, education center, planetarium and a conservatory, in a series of connected or semi-connected buildings.
The current Palmer Museum of Art will be repurposed for academic uses that have yet to be announced.
Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2022, the museum will present several exhibitions this fall at its current home on Curtin Road, including two that look at the museum’s past and future.
“Looking at Who We Are: The Palmer at Fifty,” which will be on view Sept. 23-Dec. 18, draws on Penn State’s “We Are” cheer and signals an introspective reckoning as the Museum marks this historic milestone.
“Featuring a selection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and sculpture from the permanent collection, the exhibition explores how history, place and community shape our conception of museums and of ourselves,” according to a news release. “It invites viewers to take a broader look at personal and cultural identity through the lens of specific works of art and to consider how collections are formed and institutional histories are written.”
“Designed for the Future: The New Palmer Museum of Art at the Arboretum,” on view at the same time, will allow visitors to experience the new building’s design through the architect’s model, drawings, plans, renderings and animation.
