Bellevue Arts Museum is located in the heart of downtown Bellevue where the bold glass, aluminum and textured concrete structure provides a dramatic presence at the intersection of Bellevue Way NE and the NE 6th pedestrian corridor. The building’s new facility, designed by renowned architect Steven Holl, has 5,800 sq ft of gallery space on three floors, plus an art school, studio space for visiting artists, and the interactive Explore Gallery. This art museum building specializes in the work of Northwest artists but also explores national and international influences on local art.

The Bellevue Arts Museum focuses on education and outreach rather than collecting, and collaborates with local arts and educational institutions to provide innovative arts programming and temporary exhibitions. Steven Holl made extensive use of glass, terraces and skylights in his investigation of light, creating a building that is an artwork in its own right. Roughly a third of the exterior surface is glass, with the remaining two-thirds divided evenly between hand-sanded marine aluminum and textured concrete stained in earth-red tones.

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The Simmons Hall on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is part of M.I.T.’s ambition to impart unique contemporary architecture on their expanding campus. There are already buildings by Frank Gehry, Kevin Roche and Fumihiko Maki. The 350 bed residence is envisioned to Steven Holl as a part of the city form and campus form with a concept of ‘porosity’ along Vassar Street. It is a vertical slice of a city ten stories tall and 350 feet long.

The urban concept provides amenities to students within the dormitory such as a 125 seat theater, as well as a night cafe. House dining is on street level, like a street front restaurant with a special awning and outdoor tables. Eight atria connect the floors vertically in a manner more flowing than rigid, contrasting the regimented exterior. The combination of circulation with dorm rooms and ancillary functions is the primary programmatic solution that reinforces the notion of the building as a slice of the city. Parts of the city are lifted into the building and inserted next to internal streets, for use by students and their guests, in effect making the building a contemporary re-interpretation of Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles, France.

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On June 16, 2007 the 165,000 square-foot expansion of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas, Missouri named Bloch Building will open, with an inaugural exhibition of Impressionist paintings from the building’s founders, Henry and Marion Bloch, also the exhibition of 19th-century photographs from the encyclopedic Hallmark Photographic Collection. The name “Bloch” itself is to honor Henry W. Bloch. The project is funded by raising fund for more than $200 million for the renovation and expansion and $170 million for an endowment fund.

Devised by architect Steven Holl, the building will show the museum’s collections of contemporary and African art and feature new galleries for rotating exhibitions of photography. “With a world-class building, never-before-seen works in our special exhibitions, and rejuvenated permanent collection galleries, we can’t wait to welcome visitors from all over to experience the new Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,” says Marc F. Wilson, Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell, Director and CEO of the Museum.

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