Art Preserve - John Michael Kohler Center for the Arts

The Building Exterior 

YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr1bkvewgws&t=74s

The Denver-based design firm Tres Birds was tasked with creating a space that speaks to the collection, both materially and experientially. They chose humble materials such as wood and concrete to echo the frequent use of each in the work in the collection. Hugging the hillside it is built on, the building is irregularly shaped and utilizes corners, recesses, and vistas as opportunities for discovery. Noting the relationship of the design to the collection and the site, the architects write:

The collection informed the shape and form of the building in two ways. As much of the collection was built and exhibited outdoors and draws power from this connection, the form of the building was influenced by this in the way that apertures have been placed throughout the space so the art has connections to the exterior. Whether it’s a grand view of the Sheboygan River across Lower Falls Road or a view to the adjacent wooded hillside, views and light have been curated to create an ever-changing space in which the art lives. The collection has been described as work built by humble people using humble materials to create extraordinary work. The materiality of the building follows suit by using regional river rock and timber in innovative ways. For example, the regional river rock has been exposed in the exterior concrete work and the polished concrete floors. The regionally sourced “timber shades” are used to shade the interior of the space to protect the collection, but they also represent the experience of the trees located on the hillside surrounding the building.

The Art Preserve building comprises approximately 56,000 sq. ft. of floor space and over three stories, including more than 37,000 sq. ft. of dedicated gallery space with visible storage, an education area, a library, a study collection, and archive room. It is set on 38 acres, adjacent to protected property owned by Glacial Lakes Conservancy.

A NEW HOME FOR AN INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED COLLECTION OF ARTIST-BUILT ENVIRONMENTS

Plan your visit today! See the Art Preserve Web Site:

https://www.jmkac.org/art-preserve/

Bone towers built in a kitchen.  Concrete sculptures constructed in a yard on the shore of Lake Michigan. Elaborate fiber hangings woven in a New York City loft. These works from the John Michael Kohler Arts Center collection exemplify the wide-ranging and complex artist-built environments contained at the Art Preserve.

The Art Preserve is an experimental space designed to house the Arts Center’s collection of over thirty-five artist-built environments. More than a building, it is a platform for ongoing explorations and investigations into these environments, their makers, and the Arts Center’s role as their institutional steward. It embodies the Arts Center’s conviction that significant, original, and compelling works of art are created everywhere, by people from a broad spectrum of life experiences.

Walking through the building provides a variety of encounters with methods of display and exhibition. Most of the sites represented in the collection have a designated, specially designed display area evoking an aspect of their original location. Some collections are arrayed on densely packed monumental shelves or racks meant to feel overwhelming, while others have been installed as completely immersive environments intended to be transportive.

Because the Art Preserve also serves as the active storage facility for the Arts Center’s collection, an area of museum operations not normally accessible to the public, visitors are invited to learn more about the collection while contemporary artists, conservators, researchers, and Arts Center staff address issues of presentation, conservation, and scholarship in real time.