Penn State university's art museum reopens in new $85m building that seeks to blend art with nature

The new Palmer Museum of Art building at Penn State, view from the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens Photo: © Jeremy Bittermann/JSBA
The Palmer Museum of Art at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) reopens on 1 June after a three-year, $85m project to build a new facility that almost doubles the old museum’s space to 73,000 sq. ft.
Designed by the architecture firm Allied Works, the new Palmer includes 20 galleries, education and event spaces, a museum store and café. The surrounding five-acre landscape design is by Reed Hilderbrand; the landscape architects previously worked with Allied Works on the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver.
The ceramics gallery at the Palmer Museum of Art, with a view of the arboretum Photo: © Jeremy Bittermann/JSBA
Located within Penn State’s arboretum and near its botanic gardens, the Palmer’s design focuses on the relationships between art and nature—through the use of local sandstone as a building material and large windows and skylights that frame the surrounding landscape. Inside, a new site-specific work by the glass artist Dale Chihuly takes its inspiration from flowers in the arboretum.
“A visit to the new Palmer Museum provides a remarkable opportunity to meander through spaces filled with works of art as though one were strolling through the landscape, experiencing art, architecture and nature as something both intimate and immense,” Erin M. Coe, the museum’s director, said in a statement. “It is my hope that visitors will not discern a separation between the architecture … and the outside landscape, but rather conceive of both as one.”
Dale Chihuly's site-specific work Lupine Blue Persian Wall (2023) Courtesy the Palmer Museum of Art
In addition to increased accessibility, the new Palmer houses the museum’s first hybrid gallery and classroom space, to be used by Penn State faculty to incorporate art into their curricula. The inaugural exhibition in the space (until 1 September) is a sampling of the Palmer’s permanent collection; the works on view relate to medicine, caring and mortality and were curated together with students and faculty from the university’s medical school.
Meanwhile, in its main space, the Palmer showcases a large exhibition (until 1 December) of works by artists with strong connections to Pennsylvania—people like Mary Cassatt, Vanessa German, Keith Haring, Barkley Hendricks, Franz Kline, Jeff Koons, Roberto Lugo, Howardena Pindell, Andy Warhol and Andrew Wyeth.

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