Parrish Art Museum: Herzog & de Meuron's new gallery opens

Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the new Parrish Art Museum is an appropriately sleek and low-key addition to the Hamptons cultural landscape. The exterior of the Herzog de Meuron-designed Parrish Art Museum Although

New York state's Parrish Art Museum dates from 1898, it was given a new lease of life this month with the opening of its new site in the small village of Water Mill. The relocation means the gallery now has 12,200 square feet of exhibition space at its disposal - three times the space that was available to it at its former home iin Jobs Lane in Southampton.
This time round, however, the buidling itself is as much a draw as the artworks within it. Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the 615ft-long single-storey building is a sweeping, simple barn-like structure far more restrained in style than many of the architects' previous undertakings (including Beijing's Bird's Nest Olympics Stadium).

Initial plans for the museum were more architecturally extravagant but had to be scaled back when sufficient funding couldn't be raised. Now open to the public, the building's ten separate gallery spaces will house works from the Parrish Art Museum's collection of 2,600 paintings, sculptures and works on paper by many of America's most influential artists, as well as a series of temporary exhibitions. Running until January 13, the main current exhibition is dedicated to the London-born, US-based artist Malcolm Morley. More generally, the gallery devotes part of its permanent collection to showcasing the story of America's influential artists' colony Eastern Long Island.

The Hamptons has this month enhanced its cultural appeal with the opening of the new Parrish Art Museum. Although the museum was founded in 1898, it has relocated from its former home in Southampton in New York to the small village of Water Mill, also in New York. It is now housed in a 34,400sq-foot, Herzog & de Meuron-designed building. Resembling an extended barn, it contains seven galleries and its permanent collection is dedicated to telling the story of the artists’ colony at Eastern Long Island.