Get ready for a whole lot of beautiful, MacArthur Park.
On Feb. 27, the Arkansas Arts Center revealed designs for a renovated and reimagined center with a projected opening in early 2022. The designs highlight the AAC’s goal of reaching into the surrounding area to build community and to integrate with its natural surroundings in MacArthur Park.
A whopping 127,000 square feet of expansions and renovations await the AAC, including a new entrance exposing the original 1937 Museum of Fine Arts entryway, expanded studios and education spaces, a black box theater, a “family art adventure space” and an indoor/outdoor restaurant overlooking the park.
Outside, guests will enjoy all new gardens, groves of trees and plazas inspired by The Natural State’s assets to create a “museum within the forest.” The landscape will feature native plants and rainwater reclamation to harmonize with the sustainable practices integrated into the center’s design concepts.
“Because the Arkansas Arts Center is made up of eight additions to the 1937 Museum of Fine Arts, it’s a very complicated puzzle,” AAC executive director Todd Herman said. “We have the right architects and the right landscape architects to transform our institution into a destination for arts education and a hub that connects the programs of the AAC with newly designed outdoor spaces.”
The team entrusted to bring these designs to life includes Studio Gang, an architecture and urban design practice based in Chicago, New York and San Francisco, which will work in partnership with Little Rock’s Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects. SCAPE, a “design-driven” landscape architecture and urban design studio based in New York, will tackle the outdoor areas.
According to the AAC, renovations are predicted to increase visitor services by 81 percent, exhibitions and collections management by 25 percent and education, public programs and the Museum School by 50 percent.
“The AAC is well-loved and has been well-used,” Herman said. “The building has held up well, but this renovation and expansion is needed for the Arts Center to be the kind of community resource that meets the changing expectations of our visitors, our growing world-class art collection and art school and to continue offering groundbreaking educational programs to a diverse community.”
Construction is scheduled to begin in fall of 2019. During the process, the AAC will work with partners in the surrounding arts community to host its programming in locations throughout the city.
Learn more about the Arkansas Arts Center at the museum’s website, and follow along on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest.
