Parrish Art Museum Marks 10th Anniversary With Deep Dive Into Museum Design

In celebration of the Parrish Art Museum’s 10th anniversary of moving to Water Mill, the Parrish welcomed the building’s architects, Ascan Mergenthaler and Philip Schmerbeck, as well as Hank Willis Thomas, the presenting artist and co-curator of the “Another Justice” exhibit, to a panel to discuss the museum’s design from both the architects’ and artist’s perspectives.

The architects said they aimed to create a space that reflected Long Island’s natural beauty and landscape. The museum is built on a 14-acre meadow, complete with indigenous grasses.

The architecture of the museum reflects sheds and barns, paying homage to the average Hamptons artist’s generations-old backyard workshop. It is also oriented east-west, allowing changing perspectives of the building, and as Schmerbeck said, creates “a dynamic relationship to the road that we all have to ride to get out here.”

Museum Executive Director Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, who holds a Ph.D. in architecture, moderated the discussion, which was also livestreamed on the museum’s YouTube channel on Saturday, September 3.

“We think that folks that come to the Parrish have access to excellence, just by opening the door and walking through our galleries, also having access to excellent art, excellent architecture, excellent design,” Ramírez-Montagut said. “I do think that architecturally relevant buildings add layers of meaning and symbolism and texture and richness to the visitor experience.”

Many of the art galleries have windows looking out onto the meadow, and from the main entrance, one can see across the museum, all the way to the highway.

The exterior walls are made of concrete, functioning as “bookends” for the building, with benches on the grand scale. Overhangs running the full building length provide shelter for outdoor events.

Mergenthaler and Schmerbeck are of the Pritzker Prize-winning firm Herzog & de Meuron and have designed projects all over the world between them, including the de Young Museum in San Francisco; the Tate Modern Project in London; the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford; the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg; 56 Leonard Street in New York City; and Tai Kwun, Center for Heritage & Arts; as well as M+, a cultural center for 20th and 21st century art, design, architecture and the moving image in Hong Kong.

When Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs & Senior Curator Corinne Erni approached the architects about doing a panel, she expected they would want to speak with an architecture critic, someone directly involved in their craft.

“When they said, ‘we want to talk to an artist who’s currently showing at the Parrish,’ I could think of none better than the artist Hank Willis Thomas,” Erni said.

Thomas is the co-founder of the artists’ collaborative For Freedoms, which aims to create a space for creative civic engagement.

“Hank is someone who doesn’t only think about how to hang the work, but he’s thinking about the space, about the institution and the community that he’s entering in dialogue with when he does an exhibition,” Erni said.

His exhibition at the Parrish, “Another Justice: US is Them,” which features the work of 12 artists, is designed to “adopt dynamic and responsive approaches to activate the full volume of the architectural space.” It features Thomas’s wall-sized works made from deconstructed flags, defining the gallery space. In between galleries is deaf artist Christine Sun Kim’s works, “featuring bold vibrant notations” in American Sign Language.

Thomas said he first came to the Parrish a decade ago and was struck by the building, having been in the art design space for his entire life as the son of curator Deborah Willis.

“Only in the past 15 years have I really seen as many museums that look like they are works of art in themselves,” he said.

He noted the beauty and excellence of the museum’s architecture brought its own challenges when it came time to curate his own space there.

“Artists that we collaborated with in this exhibition were all very honored and enthusiastic about showing but also, if not intimidated, challenged by ‘what is the best way that I can present my work in the space because it does say so much already,’” he said.

Mergenthaler said when the museum was being designed the architects met with the artist community of Long Island, holding multiple meetings and visiting them in their studios to learn what they loved so much about the East End and the original museum building in Southampton Village.

Their answer: the ever-changing natural light, which became the focal point of the museum design. Mergenthaler said the Parrish is one of the few museums in the United States with such a concept and also one of the few not to have spotlights and track lighting.

“We want the building and the gallery spaces to serve the art and the artist,” he said. “At the same time, we also want to give spaces with some character, not just an empty white box. It’s a fine line. How much can you want to shape the actual gallery space as to not overwhelm the content that has to be shown in?”

Collaboration, not only with the artist communities but with museum officials, contractors, and engineers was key, as they were working on a tight budget, with little room for error.

Schmerbeck said one way this was done was using 400-year-old reclaimed wood on the interior from the structural beams of a Virginia textile mill.

“As the visitor experience, you sit on it, you touch it,” he said. “Everything in the building that you touch is made out of this material that has had multiple lives.”

He added to save additional funds, the wood was dyed using an old-school-method that involves putting old nails in vinegar and letting them dissolve for the day. The wood was sprayed with Lipton tea and then the dissolved nail mixture was applied.

Thomas said learning the origin of the wood caused him to reflect on how people are connected to everything.

“I didn’t know I was touching a door that some of my ancestors might have actually even made as indentured people, as slaves in this country,” he said, which the architects confirmed is “very likely.”

Mergenthaler also noted that everything in the museum is designed to be inviting and open, taking in the natural beauty of the outdoor landscape.

One way they accomplished this, Mergenthaler said, is by keeping administrative offices and loading docks congruent with other museum areas.

“The loading dock could look like the main entrance,” Ramírez-Montagut explained. “It actually looks a little bit like the theater, which is on the opposite side of the building. The theater has more or less the same space as the loading dock.”

Ramírez-Montagut added she has “the most beautiful office in the world,” which is visible to the outside as visitors walk up a certain path.

“I love being able to see who’s walking into the museum,” she said. I see families, I see the visitors … I wave to everyone that looks at me working in the office.”

The design elements of the museum, such as its gable roof, are also in many ways simplistic.

“If you ask a kid to draw a building or how to draw a house, it’s always with a gabled roof,” Mergenthaler said. “It really clearly says, come under my roof and be with me.”

Functionally, the roof brings in northern light, an artist’s preference, and keeps rain and snow off of the museum.

Schmerbeck said another way they kept the space so inviting was ensuring that it is interconnected.

“Sometimes you don’t know where the front door actually is in this building, which might force you to make that first round around the building before you find the place to open the door” he said.

Ramírez-Montagut said she would like to develop a 10-year plan to expand, though the museum expects to take another two to three years the fully recover from the pandemic.