Menil绘画馆是美国第一个专门为现当代画作的收藏，研究，展览和保护而建立的场馆。Menil绘画馆作为新的活动中心，建在占地30亩的Menil私人博物馆园区内。绘画馆两边是人行道和已有的艺术建筑群（博物馆主楼，佛里斯科教堂，塞·托姆布雷画廊等）。新建筑是为Menil绘画馆量身打造的，是Menil美术馆自2008年便开始酝酿的项目，也是自Menil私人博物馆园区建成以来增建的第一栋艺术建筑，它的落成将为休斯敦中心区的文化环境添上浓墨重彩的一笔。

The Menil Drawing Institute is the first freestanding facility in the United States created especially for the acquisition, study, exhibition, storage, and conservation of modern and contemporary drawings. Situated on the 30-acre campus of the Menil Collection as a hub among the pedestrian routes and existing art buildings (the main museum building, Byzantine Fresco Chapel, and Cy Twombly Gallery), the new building provides a purpose-built home for the Menil Drawing Institute, which has existed as a program of the Menil Collection since 2008. The Menil Drawing Institute is the first building for art added to the Menil’s architecturally distinguished ensemble under a long-range plan to enrich and enhance the enclave in the heart of Houston.

▼建筑外观，exterior  view ©Richard Barnes

▼南立面，south elevation ©Richard Barnes

▼西立面，前方是Ellsworth Kelly的作品《Menil Curve》，west elevation, with Ellsworth Kelly’s Menil Curve , 2015 ©Richard Barnes

为了在实现建筑计划的同时使公众能够近距离接触到馆内的画作，建筑师在一个对采光高度敏感的空间里巧妙地实现了室内与室外的互动关系。光线设计利用周围树木的树冠和建筑顶篷，让游客进入Menil绘画馆时，能够感受到德州刺眼的阳光逐渐变得柔和。阳光穿过两个入口庭院和学者回廊后变得微弱，让游客和学者们适应公共空间的光线。设计师利用渐变的人造光定义展览区和储存区。研究室里设有天窗采光，天窗有多孔玻璃和帆布窗帘，这样研究人员就可以观察到一天之中天空的细微变化。

Responding to the goal of elevating the presence of drawings on the Menil campus and making them accessible to the public, the design achieves an unprecedented interplay between indoor and outdoor space in a facility for highly light-sensitive works on paper. As visitors approach and enter the Menil Drawing Institute, the design naturally and incrementally reduces the intensity of the sharp Texas sunlight by means of the canopy of the surrounding trees and the roof canopy of the building. A modest level of baffled light, spilling into the building through two entrance courtyards and a “scholars’ cloister,” orients visitors and scholars in the areas of public gathering. More controlled gradients of artificial light define the areas for exhibition and storage. In the study room, a skylight fitted with fritted glass and a sailcloth scrim (not unlike the sailcloth ceiling of the Cy Twombly Gallery) admits natural light, so that researchers may notice subtle changes in the sky throughout the day.

▼建筑顶篷的设计让游客在进入绘画馆时能够感受到阳光逐渐变得柔和，the design naturally and incrementally reduces the intensity of the sharp Texas sunlight by means of the canopy of the surrounding trees and the roof canopy of the building ©Richard Barnes