Everson Museum of Art: color and chiaroscuro

By Editorial Staff - 22 October 2024

MILLIØNS’ project for the East Wing of the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York, is all about vision, generosity, sharing, and the future. Designed by Chinese architect Ieoh Ming Pei, the venue first opened its doors in 1968.

After winning a 2019 competition for the design of a new museum café, the studio’s work soon extended to reimagining the entire East Wing of the building to create better access to the institution and its important permanent collection of ceramic works. The museum’s collection includes over ten thousand works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, videos, and graphic works that trace the history of American and international ceramic art.

The Louise Café takes its name from visionary ceramic collector Louise Rosenfield. When Rosenfield heard about the project, she offered to donate her immense collection of over four thousand works to the museum on the condition that they be accessible to all its visitors. With many of these works now exhibited in the café, her dream of sharing this heritage with the largest number of people possible has come true in a symbiosis between ceramic art and dining. And with the immense collection on rotational display, every visit to the Louise Café is a surprise and a little different. After creating this immersive setting of innovative architectural lines, light, and shadow, architects Zeina Koreitem and JohnMay set about redesigning the entire East Wing of the museum, focusing on openness and greater usability.

Pei’s lesson and the Louise Café

Everson Museum of Art, MILLIØNS © Iwan Baan, courtesy of MILLIØNS

In their work, the architects drew inspiration from Pei’s brutalist architecture, and its pronounced interplay of light and shadow in the interiors. This is most obvious in the East Wing, where the architects further emphasized the sophisticated chiaroscuro effects with materials and surfaces that intensify the reflection and refraction of light.

The café is also characterized by the variety and vivacity of the colors of the ceramics, which are displayed to visitors in two floor-to-ceiling glass cases designed to highlight the works.

Rethinking spaces for visitors

Everson Museum of Art, MILLIØNS © Iwan Baan, courtesy of MILLIØNS

The East Wing of the museum previously had a dual function, with its upper floor accessible to the public and the lower floor restricted to use by staff. Following the renovation, however, the lower level now has a semi-public role and is available for events and exhibitions, while the staff areas include new spaces, a library, and offices. The connection between the East Wing and the Louise Café was created through the collector’s works. Nevertheless, the changes are truly minimal, understated, and in keeping with Pei’s original design.

In the architects’ own words

Everson Museum of Art, MILLIØNS © Iwan Baan, courtesy of MILLIØNS

“We like to produce tensions between heavy, monolithic materials and light, thin materials,” the architects said. “We took a heliocentric approach, so all colors, surfaces, and materials spec-ed are meant to enhance the natural light coming from the skylights. Our work often uses gradients and rainbow-like palettes. We like to work with color as a kind of volumetric finish, rather than a secondary or superficial layer. The concrete palette of the museum is much more dynamic than one might think.”