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Well the Akron Art Museum is starting a baller exspansion plan.  Any Akroners or anyone with pics?  Ill look for the official renderings and such.

That will be impressive space when they get it done. Quite an improvement over that former post office they have now.

  • 6 months later...

I haven't seen a damn thing about this since this post.  Anyone know of any construction pics, what's going on, etc.?

^ Ah, yes, the link has a few pics.  Thanks!

  • 5 months later...

From the 8/4/05 Akron Beacon Journal:

 

 

Akron Art Museum's addition wins design award

By Dorothy Shinn

Beacon Journal art critic

 

The design for the new Akron Art Museum has won a 2005 American Architecture Award presented by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design.

 

The museum addition, designed by architectural firm Coop Himmelb(l)au of Vienna, is among 33 projects selected for this year's honor, and one of only three led by a foreign architectural firm.

 

More at

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/living/12300142.htm

 

It's receiving a lot of press in the art world.  This appeared on Artdaily.com, 8/10/05:

 

 

American Architecture Award to Akron Art Museum

August 10, 2005

 

AKRON, OHIO. - While construction on the Akron Art Museum’s expansion project continues, the new building has already attracted international attention.  The design for the new facility has been selected for a prestigious 2005 American Architecture Award presented by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design. The new Akron Art Museum, designed by architectural firm Coop Himmelb(l)au of Vienna, is among 33 projects selected for this year’s honor, and one of only three projects selected that is led by a foreign architectural firm.

 

The Chicago Athenaeum founded The American Architecture Awards in 1997 in an effort to draw significant international attention to new buildings and planning projects being built and designed in the U.S. Since its inception, The American Architecture Awards has quickly become the nation’s most prestigious awards program for new commercial, institutional and residential design showcasing the most important architectural firms working in America today.

 

More at

http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=14574

 

  • 4 weeks later...

From the 9/4/05 Akron Beacon Journal:

 

 

Akron Art Museum pushes back reopening

Museum, set to open as late as '07, also gets $260,000 in grants

By Dorothy Shinn

Beacon Journal art and architecture critic

 

Lots of news came out of the Akron Art Museum last week.

 

The good news is that the museum has won three grants totaling $260,000 to be used for the first permanent installation of works from the museum's own collection.

 

The not-so-good news is that the museum, which had last year disputed a report that it could take until December 2006 to reopen, said at the end of the press release on the grants that it expects to reopen in late 2006 or early 2007.

 

More at

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/entertainment/12559285.htm

 

  • 3 weeks later...

From the 9/25/05 Akron Beacon Journal:

 

 

PHOTO: A welder works on the inner structure of the addition to the Akron Art Museum.  Ken Love / Akron Beacon Journal

 

Akron Art Museum's new building design tweaked

Creative solution an art

Cost forces material substitutions, minor changes to dining area roof

By Dorothy Shinn

Beacon Journal Art and Architecture Critic

 

If you've been wondering why the artist drawings of the new Akron Art Museum resemble a Klingon warship in the act of uncloaking, then wonder no more.

 

It's because of Tom Wiscombe, the Coop Himmelb(l)au architect who had a major hand in designing the new museum.

 

When asked if there was a science fiction theme present in this and many of the other designs created by the Vienna, Austria, design firm, he confessed.

 

"I am a big science fiction fan, and I have a lot to do with many of the designs,'' Wiscombe said recently after a walk-through of the museum's construction site.

 

More at

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/12731210.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_news

  • 4 weeks later...

From the 10/21/05 Akron Beacon Journal:

 

PHOTO: Guests at Thursday's topping-off party check out the Akron Art Museum project; an earlier ceremony planted the traditional evergreen and U.S. flag.  Lew Stamp/Akron Beacon Journal

 

Grant tops off new art museum

Kresge Foundation offer hinges on gifts by others

By Rachel Myers

Beacon Journal staff writer

 

The apex of Akron's art scene was acknowledged Thursday with hors d'oeuvres, wine and several hundred thousand dollars.  The Akron Art Museum hosted a topping-off ceremony, a symbolic tradition signifying that the highest point in construction has been reached, and announced an $850,000 challenge grant awarded by the Kresge Foundation. The grant will help the museum reach its fund-raising goal of $38 million.

 

The museum has been under construction since May 2004, and is expected to be finished late next year or early in 2007.  The existing structure was built in 1899 as a post office and was rebuilt in the early 1980s.  The renovation will triple the size of the building, adding 13,000 square feet of gallery space.  Additionally, the larger building will house dining facilities, children's classrooms and galleries, a shop, a library, an auditorium and a video orientation space.

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/12958775.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_news

 

  • 8 months later...

A local broadcast of an interview with the director of the Akron Art Museum and tour of the new construction.

http://www.ch4549.org/nnakron.htm  Its the July 7th show on that page.

  • 4 weeks later...

From the 7/31/06 ABJ:

 

PHOTO: Mitchell Kahan is celebrating his 20th year as director of the Akron Art Museum, which is undergoing a transformation and is expected to reopen in May.  Paul Tople / Akron Beacon Journal

 

Man behind museum

20-year director overseeing one of his biggest projects -- new Akron building

Katie Byard

Beacon Journal

 

Mitchell Kahan is celebrating his 20th year as director of the Akron Art Museum.  Kahan, who is overseeing the museum's expansion, admits he's startled at times to think he's spent two decades there.  When he first took the job he thought, "I'll test out Akron for a couple of years and I'll move on to a bigger city or museum.''

 

While the the museum is closed during construction of the new building, exhibitions and programs are offered throughout the community. For details, see the museum Web site, www.akronartmuseum.org.

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/15162284.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_news


Museum finances

 

Fiscal Year 2002

Revenue: $1,676,559

Net income: Museum was profitable but reported a $45,602 loss because of a prior year adjustment.

 

Fiscal Year 2003

Revenue: $1,983,033

Net income: $87,223

 

Fiscal Year 2004

Revenue: $1,896,825

Net income: $31,550

 

Fiscal Year 2005 (museum closed for expansion, resulting in lower expenses)

Revenue: $1,646,912

Net income: $262,923

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/15162293.htm

 

  • 4 months later...

The Info:

Architects: COOP HIMMELB (L)AU Prix & Swiczinsky & Dreibholz ZT GmbH

Associate Architects: Van Dijk Westlake Reed Leskosky

Contractor: Welty Building Company Ltd.

 

Some images:

AkronArtMuseum1.jpg

 

AkronArtMuseum2.gif

 

AkronArtMuseum3.jpg

I really like this design and this building as a whole!  Looks like it will be a great addition for Akron, and add a very unique edge to the dynamic of Akron!

  • 4 months later...

Here's another interview and preview about the Art museum.  It doesn't show quite as much detail as the earlier program.  More discusses the mission and intent of the building and changes people will notice when they come to the museum.

 

http://www.pbs4549.org/nnakron.htm 

 

The April 6th show is listed at the above as well as the more expansive July 7th show

 

It looks like the building is flying away...

"You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers

Wait til you see it at night.  They have color lighting underneath the wings.  They lit up one of the wings in the Fall to show it off.  But since then they haven't had any of the wings lit up, at least when I've been down there on the weekends.  I think they can alter the color underneath.  Probably look very cool with an automated program that cycles through various colors and shades.

It's like your little MAM.

"You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers

how faddish, too bad it will be an eyesore in ten years.

  • 2 months later...

From the 3/25/07 ABJ:

 

Art museum crystallizes

By Elaine Guregian

Beacon Journal arts and culture critic

 

Like a creature slowly gestating, the Akron Art Museum has been taking shape over the past months.  First it developed a glowing silver skin.  Then lights began to sparkle on the cantilevered arm that reaches over the 1899 brick building next to the new structure.  Finally, a glass lobby heaved out of the ground like a brilliant, light-refracting crystal.

 

The new construction is named the John S. and James L. Knight Building, honoring gifts totaling $6 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.  In July, the new space designed by the Viennese architecture firm Coop Himmelb(l)au will be opening, tripling the Akron Art Museum's size from 21,000 square feet to 64,000 square feet.  The opening exhibition will include 120 photographs, many of which have never been exhibited.

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/16966103.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_news

 

Both from the 6/25/07 ABJ:

 

Akron Art Museum's gala to 'Defy Gravity'

Opening of building to include big party, first look at galleries

By Katie Byard

Beacon Journal staff writer

 

About 1,500 people are expected to converge at High and Market streets in downtown Akron the evening of July 7.  They'll be attending the sold-out "Defy Gravity'' gala to celebrate the opening of the Akron Art Museum's major expansion.  "Defy Gravity'' is a nod to the new winglike roof that hovers over the museum's old section.

 

• Inaugural reopening and ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Akron Art Museum: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 17 at 1 S. High St., Akron.

 

• With the reopening, admission no longer will be free.  Instead, admission will be $7 for adults, $5 for students and 65 or older, and free for younger than 12; members also get in free.

 

• Museum hours after opening: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursdays. Closed Mondays.

 

• The Thursday evening outdoor summer concert series -- Downtown@Dusk -- will return to the museum grounds at 8:30 p.m. Aug. 9-Sept. 27.

 

• For information, call 330-376-9185 or go to www.akronartmuseum.org.

 

More at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/entertainment/visual_arts/17415418.htm

 

From the 7/8/07 ABJ:

 

Photos | Akron Art Museum gala

 

Museum awes patrons

Gala guests say building's fame will rise

By Ed Meyer

Beacon Journal staff writer

 

Judging by the sweeping gestures of his talented hands, local artist and University of Akron professor Mark Soppeland was more than impressed by what he saw Saturday night as he stood in the crowded, sunlit lobby of the new Akron Art Museum's Defy Gravity Grand Opening Gala.  "I think that this is probably the most ambitious and outrageous building in the state of Ohio,'' Soppeland said. "It is incredibly daring. It is everything that a museum should be.  This is really a big, big city museum now.  And when you walk through the galleries, you will be in galleries that will compete with the great museums of the world.  And this lobby competes with any museum in the world.  It is really dramatic.''

 

From the moment that some 1,500 patrons and contributors to the new museum pulled up to the building's entrance at East Market and South High streets in downtown Akron, drama and elegance flowed in all directions.  Arriving guests -- in black tie and evening gowns -- were greeted in the street by valets dressed in white tuxedo jackets and black pants and women in flowing black dresses who opened the car doors for the short walk to the entranceway.  Inside, the soaring, three-story glass lobby of the 63,000-square-foot building was bathed in bright sunlight and pleasant music from live bands.

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/17470201.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_news

 

From the 7/9/07 ABJ:

 

PHOTO: This is how Akron's post office looked after its opening in 1899 at East Market and South High streets. It was the city's first government-owned post office. Today, the exterior looks nearly the same - with one really big exception. Honestly, you can't miss it.  Akron Beacon Journal file photo

 

Post impressions

Downtown Akron landmark wasn't easy to deliver

By Mark J. Price

Beacon Journal staff writer

 

Akron residents ridiculed the new building at East Market and South High streets.  They called it a blemish on the skyline and a waste of taxpayer money.  The Beacon Journal condemned it as an architectural monstrosity and urged citizens to protest its construction.  The hideous building that caused so much controversy was the federal post office, a brick-and-limestone edifice that opened in July 1899.

 

Through the decades, it became a cherished landmark in downtown Akron and eventually earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.  Today, it is encased in glass and steel. A winglike projection hovers over its roof.  Yes, it's that building. 

 

The old post office is the original section of the newly expanded Akron Art Museum, which reopens this week after a $44.3 million capital campaign.  Sometimes history has a keen sense of humor.

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/living/17472767.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_news

 

Link contains a photo.  From the 7/11/07 ABJ:

 

ART LOVERS RAISE $44.3 MILLION

Museum exceeds goal for building

Director praises Akron's leadership in culture

By Elaine Guregian

Beacon Journal arts and culture writer

 

Standing in the light-filled glass lobby of the new Akron Art Museum, Director Mitchell Kahan announced Tuesday that fundraisers have exceeded their goal for the museum.  Kahan told media representatives that $44.3 million has been raised, including $35 million for the building and the remainder for an operating endowment fund.  Sitting next to the 1899 post office building where the Akron Art Museum's contemporary art collection has been shown until now, Akron's first art museum specifically built for that purpose has risen.

 

Maybe "risen'' isn't dramatic enough.  With a 300-foot "roof cloud'' extending like steel wings over the building, the museum looks as if it's about to take off.  That's by design of its architect, Wolf Prix of the Viennese firm Coop Himmelb(l)au.  "We are the architects of no gravity. We know how to fly,'' Prix said in a conversation on Tuesday at the museum. "The wing is a symbol for flight.''

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/entertainment/visual_arts/17480351.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_news

 

I was just reading the review of the new addition to the Akron Art Museum in the Washington Post (actually a very long and comprehensive article) and was surprised by one particular quote from this "outsider" (along with the standard "rust belt" reference)..."Ohio has an impressive architectural record..."  You would never hear Steve Litt uttering those words.

^He has said that many times in his articles.

Litt wrote a piece in this month's Metropolis about the Akron museum.

Here is the Washington Post review

 

One Smashing Smashup

In Akron, a Museum Wing Lifts an Old, Earthbound Building

By Philip Kennicott

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, July 13, 2007; Page C01

 

AKRON, Ohio -  Transformers are a popular line of robot characters, known to children through cartoons, video games, comic books, movies and especially toys (by Hasbro, ages 5 and up).  They are machines that morph, metallic humanoid creatures that unfold out of the shell of a car, truck, cellphone or some other everyday object.  Little boys, who can't get enough of them, seem to respond to the bristling, sci-fi menace hidden inside the familiar lines of an ordinary toy.  That primal appeal, the magic of unfolding something angular and energetic and maybe even violent out of an innocuous shell, also defines the aesthetic of architect Wolf D. Prix -- and a whole generation of so-called deconstructivist architects.

 

With its metal-mesh-encased arms, its chrysalis glass core and its long thorax of aluminum-covered gallery space, Prix's new addition to the Akron Art Museum feels biomorphic and mechanical at the same time.  It is a discombobulated building pulsing with space-age energy, operating on different levels and at wild angles.  It is so "deconstructed" -- whatever that means -- that it feels as if it might well have been a very normal-looking building that someone decided to unfold into weird shapes on the drafting table.  And it sits next to a simple brick box, the old Akron museum that it dwarfs and expands -- which could be the box the toy came in.

 

More at http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Here is one from the LA Times

 

Coop Himmelblau's Akron, Ohio, museum wing adds space-age lines

The new $35-million building is attached to the museum’s existing home, a Renaissance Revival post office built in 1899.

By Christopher Hawthorne, Times Staff Writer

July 11, 2007 

 

AKRON, Ohio — Wolf Prix and Helmut Swiczinsky, the Austrian architects who founded Coop Himmelblau in 1968, have waited an unusually long time for a U.S. debut.  It finally arrives next week, when the firm's soaring, audaciously sculptural new wing for the Akron Art Museum opens to the public.  Made of steel, glass, concrete and aluminum panels, the $35-million building is attached to the museum's existing home, a Renaissance Revival post office built in 1899, like a spaceship hitched to a locomotive.

 

The design makes clear that Prix and Swiczinsky are still wildly inefficient when it comes to turning the contents of their fertile imaginations into built form.  There is probably no firm in the world that requires so much highly wrought structure to prop up each of its architectural ideas, or that has to work up such a frenzy of form-making to evoke a particular mood or point of view.  Like most of their designs, this one frequently edges from drama into melodrama.

 

More at http://www.latimes.com

Here's one from the NYTimes. A bit of a mix review. Pretty sharp design, IMO.

 

Architecture Review | Akron Museum of Art

A Fine View, on the Outside at Least

 

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF

Published: July 14, 2007

 

AKRON, Ohio, July 9 — The new addition to the Akron Museum of Art underscores how hard it can be to strike a balance between daring architecture and enjoyable spaces for viewing art. Designed by the Vienna-based Coop Himmelb(l)au, the building’s crystalline exterior and lobby, with their cascading sheets of glass, reflect an exuberant spirit of invention and openness. Unfortunately, that spirit stops at the gallery doors. After the initial euphoria of taking in the big public spaces, the galleries feel surprisingly drab. You’re left with the deflating impression that the client and the architect experienced a failure of nerve at the moment that mattered most.

 

To read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/arts/design/14coop.html?em&ex=1184644800&en=158bc7f9d2aa4b01&ei=5087%0A

Both from the 7/13/07 ABJ:

 

GRAPHIC: A guide to the new building (PDF, 8.54 MB)

 

Museum achieves financial, creative goals

Leaders unveil their masterpiece

By Elaine Guregian

Beacon Journal arts and culture writer

 

It takes only a minute for Akron Art Museum Director Mitchell Kahan to come up with what he likes best about the museum's new home:  "I like that it's exhilarating.''  It deserves an appreciative gasp for more than one reason.  First, there's Coop Himmelb(l)au's sweeping design for the building.  A 300-foot "Roof Cloud'' covers the extroverted new glass/metal/concrete John S. and James L. Knight Building.  For good measure, the cantilevered steel roof reaches a wing over the museum's former home, an 1899 brick post office.

 

Then there's the audaciousness of a museum exceeding its fundraising goal.  The Akron museum raised $35 million for the building and another $9.3 million for its endowment. By December 2009, when all the pledges are collected, it will be paid in full, said board President Philip Lloyd, who co-chaired the campaign with Fred Bidwell.  That exceeds the museum's most recent goal of $42 million for the building and endowment.

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/17490494.htm


New building's architecture takes city into 21st century

Commentary

 

The best place to see the new Akron Art Museum's John S. and James L. Knight Building is standing right across from it on High Street.  As you drive east on Market Street from downtown, you get a quick glimpse of the new building just as you reach High Street.  Then the showy structure is gone in a flash.  Unless, of course, you turn onto High and try to take a longer look in the 10 or so seconds it takes to cruise by.

 

And if you get out of the car and stand across the street, you'll do a lot of block circling before you can take it all in, because the favored view is tightly controlled.  All other views are either interrupted or come and go too fast.  That's my only quibble with the fabulous $42 million form: There is no leisurely approach, no way to take it in as you do a work of art: first, from an optimal vantage point; then, at different distances.

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/17490474.htm

 

Both from the 7/14/07 ABJ:

 

MEMBERS GET FIRST GLIMPSE

Museum sparkles, inspires

By Mary Beth Breckenridge

Beacon Journal staff writer

 

John and Dolly Powers hadn't even set foot in the expanded Akron Art Museum, and already they liked what they saw.  As the Bath Township couple waited for the doors to open Friday morning for a members-only preview, they marveled at the way their surroundings reflected in so many ways in the slanted glass panes of the new entry atrium.  "It's interesting if you just take the time to be still,'' Dolly Powers said. 

 

The Powerses were among the first to satisfy their curiosity about the museum's $35 million upgrade during a two-day preview celebration, which continues today.  For many, it was a chance to see what all the fuss was about.  They wanted to see the inside of the new three-story glass structure with its controversial wing, view the new galleries and the artwork inside, and check out how the museum marries old and new.

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/17495206.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_news


The paint outside the frames

Don't expect stretches of white walls at the expanded Akron Art Museum. Instead, prepare to be surprised by rich hues, such as slate blue, charcoal and a deep, smoky green.

By Mary Beth Breckenridge

Beacon Journal staff writer

 

The members of the museum staff took pains to create a variety of environments in the new and refurbished galleries.  One important means they've used is color -- sometimes gentle, sometimes bold, but always chosen with the goal of enhancing the viewing experience.  Still, it's hard not to notice colors such as Smoke Signal, Dark Ash and Steep Cliff Gray.  They add a richness and warmth to the surroundings that white just can't achieve.

 

Tannenbaum said there has been a movement for 10 or 15 years to add color back to gallery walls, "which would have been heresy back in the '70s.''  It started with period galleries, but has since spread to galleries showing newer works, she said.  In fact, you'll see white walls in only one area of the Akron museum: the gallery that houses minimalist works that might have been created in sunny lofts.  Even those walls aren't pure white; rather, the paint has just a hint of green and gray.

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/17495089.htm

 

Dwell Magazine has a picture and short feature in this months July/Aug issue on the new Akron Art museum.  Can't find it on the website though.  Mentions that it's the firms(Coop Himmelb(l)au) first public building in the US, and they are well known in Europe for their "brazenly forward-looking architecture"....and "They may well earn the same reputaion in the American Heartland...." AND get this....no rust belt or back door blue collar jabs at all!

 

Looks like Akron is getting some good national press.  The interesting thing about the article is that it mentions the "Akron Art Museum" twice and gives the website but never specifies "Ohio" or Akron, Ohio.  I would imagine that Akron is not well known enough to just stand on it's own, but maybe I'm wrong.

Both from the 7/18/07 ABJ:

 

Chicago critic says museum flawed, but bold

Akron design fails to extend spirit of new exterior, lobby into boxy, generic galleries

By Blair Kamin

Chicago Tribune

 

They are the Rolling Stones of architecture, aging bad boys who once had the capacity to shock with their jagged, jutting forms, their snappy slogans and outrageous provocations.  In 1980, they ignited a winglike piece of exposed steel suspended above a university courtyard in Graz, Austria, and famously proclaimed: "Architecture Must Burn!''  So it was predictable that the expansion of the Akron Art Museum, the first public building in the U.S. by Wolf Prix and his cohorts at the oddly named Vienna-based firm of Coop Himmelb(l)au, would enrage some people in this small city, which is not exactly an architectural hotbed.

 

Indeed, the expansion has been compared to a piece of space junk that fell out of orbit and crash-landed on the museum's ruddy old Renaissance Revival building.  But this isn't a repeat of that Chicago horror show, The Spaceship That Landed on Soldier Field.  It is, instead, an exuberant, mostly sensitive interweaving of past and present, one that delivers a jolt of energy to a reviving Middle American city.  Like Jumpin' Jack Flash and other rhythm-driven Rolling Stones tunes, it makes up in gutsy aesthetic power what it lacks in obsessive refinement.

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/17508898.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_news


Once inside the door, museum is magnificent

What controversy? Akron patrons thrilled by spaces, lighting, artwork

By Bob Dyer

 

Can we all agree that the outside of the new Akron Art Museum is hideous?  No, we can't. Some people love it.  The rest of us hate it.  Maybe the only thing we can agree on is that it definitely isn't boring. 

 

But maybe, just maybe, we've been putting too much emphasis on the outside.  After all, as Mom used to say, it's what's inside that counts.  With that in mind, I ventured over to the new monstrosity for its public debut Tuesday morning.

 

Full story at http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/17508903.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_news

 

But the more intriguing answer is that the expansion is simply the latest avant-garde building in Ohio (yes, Ohio).

 

Thank you, Illinois.

"You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers

  • 2 years later...
  • 11 years later...

 

 

The Akron Art Museum revealed an augmented reality poster by local artist Adana Tillman. The animated 3D-image allows spectators to add elements to the artwork, change colors, and create their own designs.

 

 

 

News

Through Augmented Reality, This Artist’s Poster Comes to Life

The poster by Adana Tillman is animated as a 3D-image, allowing spectators to add elements to the artwork, change colors, and create their own designs.

 

by Hakim Bishara

December 28, 2020

 

 

 

The Akron Art Museum is inviting you to take an artwork home with the help of advanced augmented reality (AR) technology. The Ohio museum is distributing posters, created by textile artist Adana Tillman, which come to life and change forms when a QR code is scanned with a tablet or smartphone. 

 

The project, named Interplay: Art Play for All, was conceived before the COVID-19 pandemic to display large artist-made posters in public spaces across Akron. But as museums and art spaces had to close their doors to the public, the project’s goal shifted to allowing spectators to enjoy the posters at home.

 

 

more:

 

https://hyperallergic.com/611142/through-augmented-reality-this-artists-poster-comes-to-life/?utm_campaign=Week in Review&utm_content=20210101&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Hyperallergic Newsletter

 

 

spacer.png

The Akron Art Museum's Interplay: Art Play for All project transforms a poster made by artist Adana Tillman into an interactive augmented reality spectacle (Courtesy the Akron Art Museum)

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