Creating a vibrant space for social interaction, education, and appreciation for the arts, Studio Gang’s design for the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts transforms this premier cultural institution into a signature civic asset.
Working from the inside out, the design—which includes both new construction and renovations—clarifies the organization of the building’s interior while also extending AMFA’s presence into historic MacArthur Park, opening the museum to the city of Little Rock and beckoning the public within.
AMFA’s eight architectural additions have resulted in a motley collection of fortress-like spaces that lack a holistic architectural identity, clear visitor circulation, and visibility to the city and the park of which the museum is a part. Suffering from inefficient operational adjacencies, the museum’s three impressive programs—a renowned collection of works on paper, the Museum School, and the Children’s Theatre—are disconnected from each other and their surroundings, making them difficult for visitors to locate and experience.
Conceived as a stem that blossoms to the north and south and anchored by major new visitor amenities, the design mediates between the museum’s existing architecture to define a new public gallery and gathering space that provides an unprecedented axis of connectivity linking the museum’s disparate programs and also serves as a focal point for extensive renovations that help AMFA meet its growing visitor needs.
