A comprehensive description and behind-the-scenes look into the architectural evolution of the Barnes Foundation’s new building in downtown Philadelphia. In 2007, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects received the commission to design the new Barnes Foundation building, an enviable project that was surrounded both by controversy and the excitement of increasing access to one of America’s premier collections of post-impressionist art, amassed by Dr. Albert C. Barnes in the early twentieth century. The book presents photographs and drawings highlighting the new building’s sensitivity to the ideology of Dr. Barnes and the creativity of Paul Cret, who designed the foundation’s gallery in Merion. In the new facility, the Merion galleries are faithfully reproduced at the same scale with similar materials and are seamlessly integrated into the larger new building—a refined modernist masterpiece surrounded by grounds designed by landscape architect Laurie Olin.
