DAVIS MUSEUM AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE GALLERIES
Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
Three years in the making, this significant transformation of the Davis represents a milestone of reimagining for the museum. With director Lisa Fischman and the Davis curatorial team, RL led an extensive cataloging and wayfinding study, unpacking the museum's encyclopedic collection and reorganizing it into legible curatorial groups that both clarify and reinforce relationships between works of the same period & culture, and help visitors navigate the museum's 60,000 sf exhibition space.Over the museum's multiple floors, RL designed new gallery spaces, respecting Moneo's original spirit and sightlines while doubling the number of works on display. Making more work accessible to the public and students is a critical achievement that helps underpin the College's practice of actively incorporating works into the curriculum - known as the "Wellesley Method". RL collaborated with curators, conservators, scholars and specialists to create an extensive network of display casework specifically designed for the museum's 12,000 objects. RL has previously designed two exhibitions for DMWC - Read My Pins: The Madeline Albright Collection, and A Generous Medium: Photography at Wellesley 1972-2012.
Rice+Lipka Architects
Principals: Lyn Rice & Astrid Lipka
Sr Designer: Guanyi Zhang
Project Team: Kathryn Sonnabend, Jan Chen, Rachel Kim, Wayne Yan, Emmeily Zhang
Curators: Eve Straussman-Pflanzer & Claire Whitner
Architect-of-Record: Bergmeyer
Lighting: Richard Shaver Architectural Lighting
Completed 2016.
