clyfford still art museum
sophomore year, 2017
boulder, colorado
individual design
The Clyfford Still Art Museum in Denver, Colorado features open gallery spaces of Still’s artwork, administrative offices, temperature-controlled storage spaces, restoration labs, and a lobby/gift shop. The artwork is indeed pristine and beautiful, but it is not what I focused this diagrammatic model on. Made of walnut wood, concrete, and frosted acrylic, this model represents the most important parts and functions of the Clyfford Still Art Museum: Spatial hierarchy, organization, and materiality. The concrete blocks represent the nine gallery spaces in the museum; concrete due to the fact that the mental and economic structures of the museum are the galleries themselves. No one would go to a Clyfford Still museum if there was no Clyfford Still art. The wood on the second level represents the second most important mental structures: the storage spaces and conservation labs. The galleries may be the most important for public viewing of the art, but there would be no art to fill the galleries if it were not for interchangeable storage units and labs to keep the art pristine. Located at the top, the semi-clear acrylic represents the administrative and maintenance rooms in the museum. They may be hard to see with the distraction of the artwork and beautiful building, but the museum could not function if it were not for the maintenance equipment, offices, and the staff that run the show. Lastly, these material blocks are resting on a hollow pedestal with lights that come through slates (see page 16) that represent not only Still’s artwork itself, but the filtered light in the ceiling of the museum. This light, while aesthetic, also serves as a way to conserve the art by not shining direct natural light on the paintings.

clyfford still model top view