Thursday, October 13, 2016

The Parrish Art Museum


Wow, did I have fun yesterday!  This is the Parrish Art Museum in Watermill..  I have driven by it a whole bunch of times since it was built in 2012, but never stopped.  Well, yesterday it was a destination. The architecture of this building is amazing and I had a lot of fun photographing it. You know how I love architecture.  The idea of this building was to have it resemble a shed or a potato barn, and to have it blend into the landscape.  And what's really cool is that the landscaping in the field around the museum consists of wild grasses that will be allowed to grow four feet tall.  What is amazing is that the building is six hundred and fifteen feet long!  Just stunning!


The structure is made up of two peaked-roof structures joined in the middle that make up the single building.  


The walls are poured concrete and it is amazing to see them disappear into the distance.  There are huge overhangs of the roof on either side


This is an interior view of the central hallway.  The roof rafters are exposed wood, along with some I-Beams painted white.  The overall effect is one of warmth and light.


There are large skylights on both sides of the corrugated metal roof.  The galleries are lit by natural light, rather than the spotlights for each painting that many museums use.


This is one of the galleries, and you can see the soft light on the painting from the skylights in the ceiling.  The fluorescent bulbs on the far wall are a light sculpture by Dan Flavin, entitled "the nominal three (to William of Ockham) 1963


The first thing you come to at the museum entrance are these two sculptures out by Montauk Highway by Roy Lichtenstein, titled "Tokyo Brushstroke I & II"  They are so joyful!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ken, Great study of the building. The sculptures look much better in the sunlight. I like the 2nd photo of the building from the end. Did you notice the museum logo on the bags from the store is a schematic of that angle.
Stan

Anonymous said...

I love seeing so many photos to get a sense of the building and surroundings. bsk