Claesson Koivisto Rune has created an artwork gallery in Marfa, Texas, which is the Stockholm studio’s very first completed undertaking in the USA.
Claesson Koivisto Rune’s new constructing was created to property the Inde/Jacobs gallery, which specialises in Minimalist artists.
The stark horizontal landscape and piercing light of Marfa specifically fascinated the late artist Donald Judd – deemed a pioneer of Minimalism in the US.
This lead him to make the little Texan city each his property and the setting for quite a few web site-particular installations in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, despite its remote place, Marfa stays a key artwork and style location.
The new gallery is meant to proceed Judd’s legacy into the current. “You have to respect Judd without having quoting him straight,” stated principal Eero Koivisto of the studio’s design technique.
The creating appears blocky and purposefully mundane from the street, each fitting in and standing apart from the vernacular structures that surround it.
Although it appears as a single from the road, the complex is in fact comprised of two separate buildings – a gallery and a residence for its owners – joined by a courtyard.
Related story: Fagerström Property by Claesson Koivisto Rune
The studio utilised subtle sculptural moves to shape perceptions of light and room in the undertaking.
For instance, the inner courtyard wall is canted slightly to make the space seem greater than it is.
Openings for the windows and doors on the two white-coloured buildings vary just slightly, playing a trick on the eye.
The courtyard serves as both a sculpture garden for the gallery and an outdoor room for the residents.
In addition to Judd, the architects cite the influence of the Mexican Modernist Luis Barragan in the style of the courtyard, which characteristics a rocky planted area.
Within the gallery, a skylight brings the vibrant Texas light into the white-walled space. “The light is quite vertical, quite robust,” said Koivisto.
All around the aperture, 3 partitions hang from the ceiling and extend virtually to the floor, making a U-shaped volume.
The skylight enclosure provides added wall room for mounting artworks whilst also modulating the light level.
The artwork storage room is also taken care of as a detached object its walls do not attain the ceiling.
This aids preserve the sense that the gallery constructing is a single massive volume, even though also supplying varied spaces for display and back of residence functions. “These two boxes are in dialogue,” Koivisto stated. “You never see every little thing instantly.”
Photography is by Åke E:son Lindman.
Floor prepare 
Sections Dezeen
