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The Hunter Museum of American Art’s West Addition and Renovation presents a unique and innovative design solution for a contemporary issue facing many American cultural institutions: how to make the museum’s collection and resources more accessible to the public. Dramatically situated atop a 100-foot limestone bluff overlooking the Tennessee River and downtown Chattanooga, the new building is conceived primarily as a West Addition to the 1905 mansion that had been expanded to the north and east in the 1970’s. Re-establishing the primacy of the mansion and its garden setting at the center of the complex, the project brings balance to the overall facility and site composition. The new building design reaches out to the larger community with its intriguing, welcoming forms, extensive public areas, sociable terraces, and numerous city watching plazas and balconies.

The new design solves long-standing staff and art circulation problems by creating state-of-the-art receiving, storage and work areas, as well as including oversized art freight elevators. It allows the lower level to be dedicated to administrative and museum support areas. A new below-grade loading dock minimizes delivery traffic presence on the site and supports a new suite of spaces for registrar receiving exhibit preparation, security, and art storage.

Drawing from the natural setting of the site, the architects developed a building design that embodies a contemporary interpretation of the rock outcroppings and strata within the cliff below, while the undulating forms of the roof reflect the dynamic movements of the neighboring river. Contributing to the bold exterior is a material palette consisting of glass and aluminum curtain wall, oxidized zinc cladding and a stainless steel roof with angel hair finish. While floating above the glass atrium lobby, the fluid-like roof separates the addition from the body of the existing building. The contemporary language of the 2005 addition is a dramatic contrast to the museum’s turn of the century mansion home.

The project is an integral component to Chattanooga’s 21st Century Waterfront Plan, an ambitious public/private redevelopment partnership. The design of the West Addition, its terraces, and expanded garden transforms the Hunter Museum’s public image from that of a private, reserved manor to a lively, open civic forum for all the arts. Reinforcing the museum’s program for civic engagement, the city’s First Street axis has been extended, with the museum complex as its focus. A new pedestrian bridge connects a public plaza at Walnut Street and First Street, allowing visitors to walk from the downtown, above the traffic, to the sculpture garden. This revitalized urban project reverses the site’s previous isolation, created in the 1970’s when Riverfront Drive was excavated. The museum is a notable tourist attraction for the city’s newly revitalized downtown and riverfront.