Diller Scofidio + Renfro (New York, USA)

Edward Larrabee Barnes’s 1984 DMA reflects the values of its time—aloof and sequestered from the everyday lives of Dallas citizens. The new expansion will embrace the public. It will allow the DMA to show its growing collection in new ways, reaching across diverse audiences. It will engage the open sites to the north and south to create two new front doors that bookend the Museum, each visually porous and bustling with activity.

Facing Klyde Warren Park, a new contemporary gallery will cap a civic hub where the lobby, lecture hall, theater, education space, store, and cafe converge. This new face of the DMA will be fully visible from the park and the approach up Woodall Rodgers. To the south, a new restaurant and event pavilion will suspend an operable roof that will shade and provide infrastructural support for open-air public programming, while connecting with the Arts District at large.