Drawing Institute Design Unveiled

In 2012, 25 years after the opening of the Renzo Piano-designed Menil Collection in Houston, Johnston Marklee Architects was selected to design the Menil Drawing Institute (MDI), billed as "the first facility in the U.S. built especially for the exhibition, study, storage, and conservation of modern and contemporary drawings," per a Menil statement. Two years later the California duo's design for the 30,000-square foot, $40 million MDI has finally been released.

The building is the largest part of a 2009 masterplan by David Chipperfield Architects for the 30-acre campus, which now includes the Menil Collection (Renzo Piano, 1987), the Cy Twombly Gallery (Renzo Piano, 1995), a site-specific Dan Flavin sculpture, and outdoor sculpture. As part of the plan, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates will oversee the development of "a more expansive, coherent, and sustainable landscape," and Johnston Marklee will also design an Energy House, which "will serve as an efficient, environmentally sustainable central utilities plant for the museum and all of its annex buildings."

Johnston Marklee's design is, like the Menil Collection, a low, one-story design that is scaled to the primarily residential neighborhood. A circulation spine runs between two bars that are shifted relative to each other in plan. Angled roof overhangs provide shelter over the perimeter walkways, while further shading the design's two courtyards. In a statement, the architects describe their design as follows: