Progress is being made on an ambitious project to create a new art and design museum in Novato, spearheaded by the nonprofit that was founded by the family of late design pioneers Charles and Ray Eames.
We first learned last year about the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity and its purchase of the abandoned former Birkenstock factory along Highway 101 in Marin County. The institute has plans to transform the striking 1964 warehouse building and the 88.5 acres surrounding it into a hub of art and design as well as the new home for the Eames Archive collection — which currently resides in Richmond and is a major draw for design nerds.
The institute has hired the Swiss architecture firm that designed the deYoung Museum, Herzog & de Meuron, as well as Field Operations, the landscape design firm behind the Tunnel Tops and New York's High Line, to create a vision for the property. As Simon Demeuse of Herzog & de Meuron tells the Chronicle, "It is as much of a landscape project as it is a building project."
Designed by the same architect responsible for Candlestick Park, John Savage Bolles, the iconic warehouse was built originally to house a distribution center for the publisher McGraw Hill, and then in 1992 became home to German footwear company Birkenstock until 2007.
The property also includes office buildings nestled into the hills, which Birkenstock moved back into in 2012, though the warehouse remained empty after the company relocated its distribution hub to Kentucky. And then the company fully moved out again in 2020.
The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity acquired the property last summer for $36 million, and they have launched a capital campaign to complete the adaptive reuse and landscape design project.
Demeuse tells the Chronicle that his firm's aim with such projects is to "bring out the essential qualities [of a structure] and amplify them."
One can see this effort in latest renderings, which the Chronicle reports were being submitted Tuesday along with a new master plan for the property to the city of Novato. Plans call for an entry courtyard carved into the landscape, and a Great Hall that will be the point of entry to the main building — a 48,000-square-foot space that the institute says will be "one of the largest single-span spaces for art installations in the country."
The building will also house six other galleries and a library, as well as a 275-seat performance space.
While photos of the former warehouse's interior showed the ceiling covered by insulation, the redesign will expose the undulating concrete ceiling
Plans for the property also include three food-and-drink offerings — a cafe, a bistro, and a fine dining restaurant that will be open only for dinner.
The 45,000-square-foot office building on the property is being reimagined as a retreat or conference center, which will be able to host lectures and seminars, as the Chronicle reports.
"To share my grandparents’ vision with the world is the honor of a lifetime," said Llisa Demetrios, the granddaughter of the Eameses and co-founder of the institute, in a statement last year."Ray and Charles’ boundless curiosity for solving problems through design has been at the core of the Eames Institute’s mission, and this expansion will allow us to share those gifts with our community on an even larger scale."
Field Operations partner Richard Kennedy tells the Chronicle that the grounds will include "zones of movement where you can meander through gardens and collections to trails beyond the site," and people visiting the galleries will have the ability to hike around the property and up to a vista point above.
The landscape design is intended, Kennedy says, to have a similar "casual, welcoming, inviting" and playful vibe to the Tunnel Tops.
There is no timeline yet for the completion of the project, and still no cost estimate, though Eames Institute CEO John Cary tells the Chronicle it will certainly be well under the $1 billion that George Lucas just spent on his "narrative arts" museum in LA.
Previously: Prominent Midcentury Building By 101 Freeway In Novato Will Become Museum Dedicated to Charles and Ray Eames
