Parrish Art Museum

Since this project’s inception fifteen years ago, we have worked closely with the Parrish to assess program needs and feasibility, identify an appropriate site for development, and finally design and build an entirely new campus that references the region’s most compelling cultural landscapes—sheep meadow, wetland, scrub woodland—as complement to Herzog & de Meuron’s new museum building.

Siting the Museum

When the Parrish Art Museum encountered resistance to expanding its historic Jobs Lane complex in Southampton, New York, we guided them to a 14-acre former tree nursery a few miles away in Water Mill. Herzog & de Meuron’s expansive 34,000 square-foot building is conceived as an exaggerated shed-like volume, a reference to the barns and shacks artists adapted as their studios across the region. The site’s design likewise gives expression to the rural agricultural heritage and the natural environment that has provided American artists in this region a subject for critical investigation and creation since the end of the nineteenth century.