Untitled Document

A major design objective for the Asian Export Art Wing addition to the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem was to provide the facility with a technically up-to-date and aesthetically memorable structure which would house its unique collection and reflect the museum’s importance as a cultural institution. The planning requirement was for a formal organization to fit into a complex fabric of spaces, which had evolved over a long process of accretion, to charge it with new energy and suggest ways for the future growth of the Museum.

The 30,000 sf new wing occupies a prominent location in the matrix of the Museum, on the west side of the East India Marine Hall, and defines the southern most edge of the Museum's Oriental Garden. Because of its placement, the addition gives the museum a new and prominent facade towards the recreated garden on the Essex Street Mall. Its architectural language draws on Asian iconographic influences , contemporary aesthetics, and a response to the context of adjacent buildings, notably the Federalist architecture of East India Marine Hall of 1824 (National Register).

The new building includes three major types of exhibit spaces: a large generalized and flexible hall, several moderately sized exhibition spaces and a series of specially designed rooms facing the Oriental Sculpture Garden. The main vertical circulation is by way of a centrally placed circular staircase connecting all three exhibition floors of the Museum.

Further visual connection and orientation is achieved by a narrow sky-lit atrium which incorporates the historic exterior wall of East India Marine Hall and has two large Fu-dogs as guardians of entry to the new wing at the ground floor level.

click to see larger image	A major design objective for the Asian Export Art Wing addition to the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem was to provide the facility with a technically up-to-date and aesthetically memorable structure which would house its unique collection and reflect the museum’s importance as a cultural institution. The planning requirement was for a formal organization to fit into a complex fabric of spaces, which had evolved over a long process of accretion, to charge it with new energy and suggest ways for the future growth of the Museum. The 30,000 sf new wing occupies a prominent location in the matrix of the Museum, on the west side of the East India Marine Hall, and defines the southern most edge of the Museum's Oriental Garden. Because of its placement, the addition gives the museum a new and prominent facade towards the recreated garden on the Essex Street Mall. Its architectural language draws on Asian iconographic influences , contemporary aesthetics, and a response to the context of adjacent buildings, notably the Federalist architecture of East India Marine Hall of 1824 (National Register). The new building includes three major types of exhibit spaces: a large generalized and flexible hall, several moderately sized exhibition spaces and a series of specially designed rooms facing the Oriental Sculpture Garden. The main vertical circulation is by way of a centrally placed circular staircase connecting all three exhibition floors of the Museum. Further visual connection and orientation is achieved by a narrow sky-lit atrium which incorporates the historic exterior wall of East India Marine Hall and has two large Fu-dogs as guardians of entry to the new wing at the ground floor level.
	*Project Data* Completion Date: 1988 Total Area: 35,000 sf	Awards: • 1991 BSA Export Award, Highest Honor • 1991 BSA Interior Architecture Award • 1990 Preservation Award, Salem Historical Society • 1989 International Masonry Institute Award • 1988 Design Award, NE Masonry Association Publications • Antiques Magazine, 1988 • The Boston Globe, August 1988 • A + U Magazine, August 1988


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