Johnston Marklee (Los Angeles, USA)

Our vision for the DMA is of a museum in a garden. A collection of pavilions and courtyards both existing and new, linked by a lively internal street. A place that welcomes and engages its visitors: where art connects with nature, and culture connects with the city.

A museum that is made up of collectives and collections, whose architecture forges connections and dialogues among objects, spaces, and people, between city and museum, between art and life, between old and new.

The new pavilions provide contemporary gallery and event spaces in volumes referring back to the DNA of the DMA. Their vaulted profiles project the Museum’s image of the Museum outwards, articulating the welcoming porosity between city, street, museum circulation, galleries, and gardens. Their materiality articulates a contrasting sensibility: ethereal and light, whose translucency reveals the Museum’s workings to the city beyond.