Glenstone – Thomas Phifer

2022

Located on 230 acres in Potomac, Maryland, near Washington, DC, Glenstone is a museum of modern and contemporary art that offers visitors a seamlessly integrated experience of works from its collection, architecture, and landscape. Its first exhibition building, known as the Gallery, was designed by Charles Gwathmey of Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects and opened to the public in 2006. The natural setting, designed by Adam Greenspan and Peter Walker of PWP Landscape Architecture, incorporates major works of outdoor sculpture within rolling meadows and unspoiled woodlands. Admission to Glenstone is always free. Visits are scheduled, to ensure that guests can have an unhurried, intimate engagement with the artworks and environment.

To provide access to a larger portion of its collection and enhance its service to the public, Glenstone has completed a major expansion of its museum facilities and landscape. The centerpiece is a new 204,000- square-foot building, called the Pavilions, designed by Thomas Phifer of Thomas Phifer and Partners.

Embedded into a rise in the landscape to give the outward impression of discrete buildings rising out of the earth, as in a traditional hill town, the Pavilions is organized within as a ring of gallery rooms surrounding a large landscaped Water Court. Rooms of varying sizes, configurations, and light conditions house single-artist installations and a multiple-artist survey of works from the Glenstone collection. The building significantly expands Glenstone’s indoor exhibition space, from 9,000 to 59,000 square feet, and also provides increased office space and support facilities. A strategic master plan and site design by PWP Landscape Architecture more than doubles the area of restored woodlands, meadows and streams accessible to the public, from approximately 100 to 230 acres. The expansion also provides a new public entrance and arrival building, two free-standing cafés, and, in 2019, a center that highlights environmentally sustainable practices at Glenstone.