Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lehman Pavilion
New York, New York · 1975
A premier precedent for monumental museum design, demonstrating how a sloped glass curtain wall and reflecting pool can house ancient stone monuments in a daylit, climate-controlled public atrium.
- What we like about this project
- The reflecting pool's edge is completely flush with the surrounding stone floor, creating a seamless transition from walking surface to water.
Materials
- glass
- steel
- stone
- concrete
- water
Visual identifiers
- sloped-glass-wall
- reflecting-pool
- gridded-ceiling
- indoor-pavilion
- temple-of-dendur
Style tags
- late-modernist
- structuralist
- monumental
Visual tags
- monumental
- civic-space
- museum-gallery
- daylit-atrium
- water-feature
- structural-glass
- Geometry
- A massive sloped glass curtain wall leans inward over a vast, orthogonal interior plaza. The ceiling is a continuous, flat, square-grid skylight system that meets the sloped glazing at a sharp angle.
- Facade system
- Sloped steel-and-glass curtain wall system.
- Structural guess
- Long-span steel trusses supporting a gridded skylight ceiling and a self-supporting sloped glass facade.
- Spatial scale
- Monumental, multi-story civic scale where an entire ancient stone temple fits comfortably as an indoor exhibit.
- Lighting
- Abundant, diffused north-facing daylight floods through the sloped glass wall and the gridded ceiling, creating soft shadows and a highly illuminated, glare-free exhibition environment.
- Atmosphere
- Serene, vast, and luminous, where the boundary between the interior gallery and the exterior park is dissolved by glass and water.
- Environmental context
- An indoor museum wing looking out through a massive glass wall onto a park landscape with trees and distant roads.
- Spatial experience
- The space feels monumentally open and airy, combining the scale of an outdoor public square with the climate control of an indoor pavilion. A large reflecting pool mirrors the grid of the glass facade, doubling the sense of verticality and light.
- Composition rhythm
- The repeating vertical mullions of the sloped glass wall create a steady, rhythmic pattern that is mirrored in the reflecting pool below.
- Style reading
- Late Modernist civic architecture
- Program
- Museum exhibition wing
- Perspective
- Interior Spatial
- Discipline
- architecture
- Materials
- glass, steel, stone, concrete, water
- Visual identifiers
- sloped-glass-wall, reflecting-pool, gridded-ceiling, indoor-pavilion, temple-of-dendur
- Style tags
- late-modernist, structuralist, monumental
- Visual tags
- monumental, civic-space, museum-gallery, daylit-atrium, water-feature, structural-glass
- Geometry
- A massive sloped glass curtain wall leans inward over a vast, orthogonal interior plaza. The ceiling is a continuous, flat, square-grid skylight system that meets the sloped glazing at a sharp angle.
- Facade system
- Sloped steel-and-glass curtain wall system.
- Structural guess
- Long-span steel trusses supporting a gridded skylight ceiling and a self-supporting sloped glass facade.
- Spatial scale
- Monumental, multi-story civic scale where an entire ancient stone temple fits comfortably as an indoor exhibit.
- Lighting
- Abundant, diffused north-facing daylight floods through the sloped glass wall and the gridded ceiling, creating soft shadows and a highly illuminated, glare-free exhibition environment.
- Atmosphere
- Serene, vast, and luminous, where the boundary between the interior gallery and the exterior park is dissolved by glass and water.
- Environmental context
- An indoor museum wing looking out through a massive glass wall onto a park landscape with trees and distant roads.
- Spatial experience
- The space feels monumentally open and airy, combining the scale of an outdoor public square with the climate control of an indoor pavilion. A large reflecting pool mirrors the grid of the glass facade, doubling the sense of verticality and light.
- Composition rhythm
- The repeating vertical mullions of the sloped glass wall create a steady, rhythmic pattern that is mirrored in the reflecting pool below.
- Style reading
- Late Modernist civic architecture
- Program
- Museum exhibition wing
- Perspective
- Interior Spatial
- Discipline
- architecture