BUILDING A ‘GATEWAY TO SANTA FE’
Architects chosen for museum building
The New Mexico Museum of Art has chosen two Albuquerque architecture firms to design its planned contemporary art building in the Railyard district. At a news conference Thursday at the future construction site — the old Halpin Building at Guadalupe and Montezuma — museum director Mary Kershaw announced that DNCA Architects and StudioGP will partner up to plan and design the remodel and additions to the building, an old warehouse that formerly was home to the state archives.
Though both are local firms, Kershaw said the search was nationwide, with about 30 firms in total considered by the state’s selection committee. Both DNCA and StudioGP have worked together and separately on museum and gallery projects. Kershaw said the project required a team with “solid worldclass experience” in the field.
“This is something the state and city has needed forever,” said Devandra Narayan, leader of the project at DNCA. He and Graham Hogan, principal at StudioGP, previously have worked together to convert nearby warehouses into art spaces such as the Railyard Galleries at South Guadalupe and Paseo de Peralta. They also collaborated for the Tamarind Institute at University of New Mexico.
DNCA is designing the new Second Street Brewery location on Rufina Street. Hogan has worked on the design of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg and Colorado Springs’ Cornerstone Arts Center.
Narayan said the plan is to restore and use the Halpin Building’s industrial “character,” while turning it — as well as the north portion of the Railyard — into a contemporary arts hub. Plans are to keep the building’s distinctive mural by Gilberto Guzman facing Guadalupe.
StudioGP’s Hogan said this will be the firm’s first major museum project in its home state.
“We just feel like it’s an incredible opportunity for Santa Fe,” said Hogan. “With its location near the Railrunner, it really has an incredible opportunity to be the gateway to Santa Fe.”
Meetings will begin today between the museum’s building committee and the design firms, which will start to analyze the current structure and create a timeline for their plans.
Veronica Gonzales, secretary of the state Cultural Affairs Department, commended the work of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation in raising money for the project and reiterated the need for a new building. As the only museum in Santa Fe that collects contemporary art, she said the New Mexico Museum of
Art’s growing collection poses an issue for its current home off the Plaza, with limited storage and exhibition space.
“We are in danger of losing the collections that are in our space,” she said. “We definitely don’t want that to happen, we don’t want the collections to go to other states.” The new building gives the museum of art another 34,000 square feet of total space.
Mayor Javier Gonzales said he’s glad to see the building moving further toward “becoming another high-quality, wonderful cultural institution.”
With a desire to begin construction in early 2019 and have the new facility open by 2020, the museum currently has $2.6 million of the $10 million needed to break ground, said Yvonne Montoya, vice president of development for the Museum of New Mexico Foundation. Foundation CEO Jamie Clements said he hopes having architects will “add momentum” to the fundraising campaign.
Montoya said a donation that may be finalized within the next few days could bring them significantly closer to the goal, but he declined to say who the donor was or how much is involved.
Gonzales said last year that Cultural Affairs also will seek state budget allocations to increase the Museum of Art’s operating funds by $1 million annually, and is also looking for about $6 million for renovations, preservation work and upgrades on the current museum as part of a five-year capital improvements plan.