Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto has been commissioned to transform the museum’s lobby, the first cohesive redesign of the iconic Gordon Bunshaft-designed building in the museum’s 42-year history.
Sugimoto (b. 1948, Tokyo) will reimagine the Hirshhorn’s lobby as an immersive, functional artwork, giving visitors an entirely new community space for creative inspiration. His design, brought to life through his Tokyo-based architectural firm New Material Research Laboratory (NMRL), will maintain the integrity and scale of the original architecture while enhancing accessibility, functionality and visitor experience.
The new space will feature a reconfigured entrance and Sugimoto-designed art objects as furnishings, welcome desks, digital signage and a dramatic 20-foot metal coffee bar. The redesigned lobby will retain the terrazzo floor, coffered ceiling and exposed aggregate walls of Bunshaft’s 1970s design. In reenvisioning the Hirshhorn space, Sugimoto looked to symbolize what is unique about both the building and the collection, ideally creating something that functions simultaneously as sculpture, furniture and conceptual art.
The redesign will also include the debut of ‘Dolcezza Coffee & Gelato at Hirshhorn,’ the Museum’s first permanent coffee shop and the only locally owned café at the Smithsonian.
Opening Feb. 23, 2018
