An Arbor for art

More than five years ago the directors and benefactors of the Modern Arts Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, embarked on a journey from their cramped, leased space to a spacious facility designed by Tadao Ando, a self-taught practitioner based in Osaka, Japan, and one of the world's most celebrated architects. The entry by Ando best addressed the museum's esthetic, functional and contextual needs. His vision, entitled An Arbor for Art, encompassed a series of gallery modules that appear to rise from the wooded site like a grove of trees. Ando envisioned a building within a building: an outer, three-story glass curtain wall that would be shaded from the Texas sun by sweeping roof overhangs and would surround massive inner gallery walls of architectural concrete. The $55 million museum will contain 153,000 square feet of floor space, including 53,000 square feet of gallery and exhibit space.