Kimbell Museum, Fort Worth Texas

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Louis Kahn designed the Fort Worth Kimbell Art Museum in 1972. A rectangle of parallel barrel vaults are inserted into an urban park. The landscaping scrapes under the concrete roof and water features further connect the spaces. A patch of structure is removed to create an entrance.

Daylight seeps through the ends of the barrels and a thin line at the top of the curve. A daylighting feature spreads this daylight down the curve and onto the displayed artwork. The daylighting is especially poignant on the brutal modernist concrete, giving it a romantic, cloistral Mediterranean feel. The concrete also acts as a good thermal mass in the warm Texas climate.

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