Dia Beacon Extension

Dia as an art foundation has been a frontier expanding organization. Architecturally, on the other hand, their museum in the old Nabisco factory in Beacon, NY, is a programatically safe, white museum. This extension addresses the foundation’s lack of artist residency programs and ties it directly with the museum. The backyard of the museum covers an area almost as large as the indoor footprint. Continuing the factory language of the former Cookie box plant, various studio and workshop spaces are created along the two banks of the field. These areas offer specific working spaces for painting, sculpting of various material, filmmaking, performance art, theater and writing. Additional general studio spaces cover the remainder of the site, for multidisciplinary creatives and artists spanning disparate fields. Raised above the grounded structure are hovering pods that house the artists in residence. Cutting through the middle of these big banks is a narrow passageway which shoots out of the end of the museum: a hallway-gallery that peaks into these studios and shows art not as final product but as time in passing (but only if the artists wish).

The tectonics of the structure was derived from two works of sculpture by John Chamberlain: His Foam Couch, which inspired the base and its intermingling of private and public thresholds. Meanwhile, the housing units and their criss-crossed structure were inspired by Chamberlain's Crumpled Car series, signifying a sense of unity out of chaos and nonsense.