Among the new additions to the permanent collection of the Palmer Museum is a sprawling installation by renowned Washington glass artist Dale Chihuly titled “Lupine Blue Persian Wall,” which covers an area 13 feet tall and 35 feet wide in the main staircase of the facility.
STATE COLLEGE — Director Erin Coe has high hopes for the The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State that features nearly two dozen galleries and new pieces for the museum’s permanent collection.
Located on the grounds of the The Arboretum, the 73,000-square-foot Palmer Museum will open to the public Saturday, with tours of the facility and special events to engage visitors’ creativity.
The museum, formerly housed in a Charles Moore-designed building on Curtin Road, closed in May 2023 as staff prepared to move the extensive art collection to the new building.
In its new home, the museum “will showcase Penn State’s commitment to innovative outreach and education by presenting the university’s art collection in spaces intentionally designed to foster robust academic collaborations, strengthen student engagement and interdisciplinary programs,” Coe said during a brief media tour Wednesday.
Since her arrival at Penn State in 2017, the Palmer Museum has undergone a radical transformation in both its collection, and its approach to curation and community engagement, Coe said.
The new Palmer Museum of Art building features distinctive steel “lenses” attached to several large windows around the facility to both improve energy efficiency and to protect sensitive art works, which may deteriorate if exposed to direct sunlight. The sandstone-draped exterior of the building is designed to evoke the geology of central Pennsylvania.
Created in 1972, the museum has steadily grown to be among the largest collections in Pennsylvania, offering free access to its wide array of works from medieval European paintings and traditional African fiber arts to contemporary American sculpture.
According to B Stephen Carpenter II, dean of the College of Arts and Architecture, the new museum building is the result of thousands of hours of collaborative work between Penn State faculty, museum administrators and the architecture and construction team.
“It really does take a village to open a museum,” Carpenter said.
To Carpenter, the Palmer Museum has a unique role in the Penn State, State College and surrounding communities.
“In my view, the Palmer Museum of Art is an interdisciplinary institute for inquiry, knowledge construction and wonder; that is what happens here,” he said.
“The visual arts are crucial to what it means to be human, and that means the Palmer Museum is crucial to what it means to be at Penn State, to be within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to be within the country, and just as a human being,” Carpenter said.
Architectural details
The $85 million building project broke ground in 2021, and was designed by Allied Works Architecture, an American company that also designed the National Veterans Memorial Museum in Columbus, Ohio, and the National Music Centre in Calgary, Canada.
Massachusetts landscape architecture firm Reed Hilderbrand also contributed to the design process, while Holder Construction was the primary contractor.
Located in the Arboretum adjacent to the Lewis Katz Building, the new museum building features 20 galleries, as well as art and educational spaces, plus outdoor facilities including a sculpture path and terrace.
According to a news release, the sandstone
-draped exterior of the building is designed to evoke the geology of central Pennsylvania, with its location nestled within the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens serving as a key inspiration.
The new museum facility is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit group that promotes environmentally sustainable building practices.
“Architects utilized predominant winds, solar angles and other environmental factors to make the museum both energy efficient and compliant with the stringent environmental standards for a fine art museum,” the release stated.
LEED certification is a four-tier rating system that factors in sustainable site selection, water and energy efficiency and indoor environment quality, among other criteria.
This adherence to sustainable design principles is integral to Penn State’s larger environmental mission, said Coe, who noted that every building on campus is LEED certified.
According to Palmer Director of Education Brandi Breslin, the building features distinctive steel “lenses” attached to several large windows around the facility to both improve energy efficiency and to protect sensitive art works, which may deteriorate if exposed to direct sunlight.
This intentional design is present throughout the building, Breslin said, such as the long sightlines which let visitors to see through several galleries at once and the automatic skylights that allow in the ideal amount of external light at any time of day.
Gallery space, collection
Currently, the museum’s collection contains over 10,500 works, which will be regularly supplemented by a rotating cast of visiting pieces.
Fifteen of the museum’s galleries will be dedicated to permanent exhibitions, with the remaining five reserved for temporary exhibitions.
Among the new additions to the permanent collection of the Palmer Museum is a sprawling installation by renowned Washington glass artist Dale Chihuly titled “Lupine Blue Persian Wall,” which covers an area 13 feet tall and 35 feet wide in the main staircase of the facility.
The soft blue-and-white blown glass forms are reminiscent of flowers or coral, and were commissioned in honor of retired university president Eric Baron and his wife Molly.
“Having previously presented exhibitions at the Palmer, I am thrilled to create a new installation for the new museum building. … I hope that the students and visitors who pass through the space will find beauty in the work,” Chihuly said in an April 2023 statement.
The museum will commemorate the opening of the new space by unveiling a number of recently-acquired works by artists including Fernando “Coco” Bedoya, Joseph Delaney, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Rodrigo Lara, David MacDonald, Malcolm Mobutu Smith, Toshiko Takaezu, Akio Takamori, Kukuli Velarde, Patti Warashina, Purvis Young, Malcah Zeldis and Arnold Zimmerman.
On the second floor, there is a “teaching” gallery, which is curated in collaboration with different members of Penn State’s faculty.
The current show, “The Art of Teaching: Medical Education and the Integrated Curriculum,” was designed in conjunction with two doctors in the College of Medicine and will feature a new exhibit every semester, Breslin said.
The centerpiece special exhibition of the new museum is a multi-medium display of works from artists across the commonwealth titled “MADE in PA,” which will run through Dec. 1. The exhibit is accompanied by a large state map showing the hometown of each respective artist.
Downstairs, there is an “interactive gallery,” Breslin said, which lets children scan their drawings of local plants and animals directly into an animated video screen in the room, so they can watch their art come to life.
With only a few days remaining until the museum’s public opening, Coe is already looking toward the future.
“I think what’s next (for the Palmer Museum) is building on the success of the opening, and conducting surveys of our visitors to get their feedback, and programming and developing exhibitions that resonate with our goals, our missions and values,” Coe said, “a lot of the focus is going to become much more on the visitors and the community.”
Mirror Staff Writer Conner Goetz is at 814-946-7535.
