Kimbell Art Museum

Location: Fort Worth, TX
GC: Beck
Fabricator: Steel Boss
Glu-Lam Fabricator: StructurLam
Engineer of Record: Guy Nordenson & Associates
Architect of Record: Kendall/Heaton Associates
Comments: The expansion to the Kimbell Art Museum, designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) and Kendall/Heaton Associates, opened in late 2013.

Renzo Piano’s colonnaded pavilion stands as an expression of simplicity—glass, concrete and wood—surrounded by elms and red oaks, some 65 yards to the west of Louis I. Kahn’s vaulted, luminous museum of 1972.

Similar in scale to the Kahn building, the 300-foot-long, 22-foot-high building is composed of two parallel wings stretching from north to south, connected by two glass passageways.

Twenty-nine pairs of wood roof beams, weighing a total of 435 tons, span the interior and extend to the exterior beneath the overhanging canopy. In addition to providing support for the roof system, the 100-foot-long beams of laminated Douglas fir add visual weight and warmth within largely continuous, changeable, and airy interiors.

(Credit: Kimball Art Museum)