A rural suburb of Washington, DC, will soon become home to one of the largest private museums in the world. A new expansion is expected to up annual attendance from 10,000 to 100,000. Glenstone is about to become one of America’s largest private museums, according to Arnet.com
“When we opened Glenstone in 2006, we hoped people would welcome the opportunity to enjoy extraordinary contemporary art, architecture and landscape as a unified experience, with no hurry, no crowding and no admission fee,” said Mitchell Rales, co-founder of Glenstone. “The response we received got stronger with each new exhibition and convinced us to carry out the larger plan we’d always had in mind. We have now doubled the area of Glenstone’s landscape, increased indoor exhibition space and ensured that a much larger selection of the collection will always be on view.”
The expansion was designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners and continues Glenstone’s relaxed, contemplative experience for visitors. It was designed in close collaboration with PWP Landscape Architecture to continue Glenstone’s commitment to the seamless integration of art, architecture and landscape. It includes restored streambeds, cisterns that can collect and reuse nearly 1 million gallons of water and an environmental center to show visitors how they can adopt sustainability practices in their own homes. “We’ve been committed from the start to offering a totally unique museum experience, focused on directly engaging our visitors and encouraging them to experience the artwork on an individual level,” said Emily Wei Rales, co-founder and director of Glenstone. “We listen more than we speak and respond to each visitor’s interpretation of the art, rather than responding to what we expect to hear from them. At the same time, we’ve been continuing to build the collection. It’s been wonderful to work with artists such as Peter Fischli and Roni Horn on developing their exhibitions, to bring exceptional groups of work into the collection and especially to collaborate with Tom Phifer and Adam Greenspan of PWP on the expansion project. We can’t wait to share it with people, starting in 2018.” Source: Glenstone.org
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