Description

Project description from KMW firm website:

"The addition of the Asian Export Wing to the Museum was to fit into a complex fabric of spaces both historic and modern which had evolved by a process of accretion over time. The 35,000 gsf wing adjoins the historic Marine Hall (of 1824) and defines the edge of the Oriental Garden with a new and prominent façade towards the pedestrian Essex Street Mall. The architectural language of the façade draws on oriental iconographic motives, on the modernism of recent additions and the Federalist style of the hall.

The new wing has a large, flexible exhibition hall, several moderately sized spaces and a procession of octagonal galleries facing the sculpture garden. A centrally placed circular staircase provides for the vertical connection between the three levels of the new wing. A narrow sky-lit atrium which incorporates the original façade of the Marine Hall makes the transition to the new wing and has the stone sculptures of two ancient Fu-dogs guarding the entry."

Awards:

- 1991 BSA Export Award, Highest Honor

- 1991 BSA Interior Architecture Award

- 1990 Preservation Award, Salem Historical Society

- 1989 International Masonry Institute Award, International Masonry Institute

- 1988 Design Award, New England Masonry Association

Publications:

- A + U Magazine, August 1988

- The Boston Globe, August 1988

- Antiques, 1988

See David Dillon, "The Architecture of Kallmann McKinnell & Wood" (2004), pp. 78-81.