Steve Chambers, AIA, studying stairwell of new museum

Built in 1967, the university’s first art center was designed by A. Hays Town modeled after the 1812 Hermitage Plantation, an antebellum building in Darrow, Louisiana. The building is completely surrounded by 24 Doric columns, laid in the Greek Revival manner with bricks covered by plaster, the columns narrowing slightly toward the top.

Originally, this building was a pale pink, an authentic reproduction of a color popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in colonial Louisiana, made by crushing old bricks and mixing the dust with paint. A. Hays Town used bricks salvaged from Martin Hall, the university’s administration building demolished in 1963, for the costruction of the Art Center, as well as its color. Mr. Town also utilized the ‘embodied energy’ of the Martin Hall staircase railing and newel post, as well as recycling cypress flooring from a New Orleans convent and slate tiles used as ballast in New Orleans sailing ships for use in the Center. Whether or not this effort in sustainability was intentional, it was certainly a cutting-edge design decision by Mr. Town.

Contrasting with its predecessor is a modern response designed by Eskew + Dumez + Ripple Architects. The new building is a steel-frame structure with precast-concrete walls on three sides and a glass curtain wall on the side facing the original Art Center. Depending on time of day and angle from which it is viewed, the glass alternates between reflective and transparent. Sometimes the viewer sees the old antebellum building in the glass; other times, we see the contemporary ‘bones’ and art of the new museum.

Of particular interest to me on my recent visit there was the stairwell of the new building. As one ascends to the contemporary art of the second floor, perforated metal walls and cathode tubing cast clean, white light and strobing images. From public spaces on the second floor, visitors can see the outdoor water feature and sculpture garden, as well as the original museum from an unusual vantage point.

When visitors look back at the old building they see the roots of Louisiana’s past. In the new design, they see the creativity and possibilities of its future. Both A. Hays Town and architecture firm of Eskew + Dumez + Ripple are to be commended for their vision and gift to Lafayette’s diverse cultural landscape. While the two buildings differ radically, they enhance rather than ignore each other.

Town Museum in front of new Hilliard Museum

Original museum reflected in the new museum’s exterior glass wall

Town’s original museum as seen from second floor of new museum

Eastern exterior view between old and new museums

Outdoor waterwall as seen from inside new museum gift shop

Second floor glass and metal corridor in new museum allows unusual vantage point to view antebellum museum from overhead