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Palmer Museum of Art at the Arboretum, Penn State University

State College, PA, USA
Architect
Allied Works

The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University, originally founded in 1972, has a collection of nearly 11,000 artworks. Replacing the museum’s former central campus home, the new 73,000 sq ft building is located within the Arboretum and adjacent to the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens at Penn State. The new facility significantly expands the Museum’s exhibition and programming spaces with twenty galleries that receive ample natural light and offer framed views of the Arboretum and botanic gardens, event spaces, a museum store and café, a sculpture path, and outdoor terraces.

Structurally organized as interlocking, box-like pavilions at varying heights to create a unified visitor experience, the new building is clad in local sandstone and steel, integrating it into the surrounding landscape and geological composition of central Pennsylvania.

Front’s scope included the glass walls, stone walls, plaster soffits, and skylights. The skylights were designed for high thermal performance, condensation resistance, a high color rendering index, and ease of maintenance. All skylights are triple-glazed, with a 3D lattice integrated into the insulated glass unit within the outer gas cavity to block direct sunlight from entering the galleries. This light blocking prevents UV degradation of artwork and results in skylights with a very low SHGC rating. The outer face of the stone wall features local bluestone cut into a slender vertical proportion and hung in a rainscreen configuration in front of an insulated stud wall. The stud wall is designed for condensation resistance to address the high interior relative humidity of the art galleries and the cold exterior temperatures in central Pennsylvania. The glass walls are triple-glazed, thermally broken, and designed for condensation resistance and minimal framing. The glass walls behind the exterior metal screens have integrated, thermally broken brackets to support the screens in front of the glass.

Front consulted on the project from schematic design through construction administration.

Jeremy Bittermann
Jeremy Bittermann
Jeremy Bittermann
Jeremy Bittermann
Jeremy Bittermann
Jeremy Bittermann
Jeremy Bittermann
Jeremy Bittermann
Jeremy Bittermann
Jeremy Bittermann
Jeremy Bittermann

The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University, originally founded in 1972, has a collection of nearly 11,000 artworks. Replacing the museum’s former central campus home, the new 73,000 sq ft building is located within the Arboretum and adjacent to the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens at Penn State. The new facility significantly expands the Museum’s exhibition and programming spaces with twenty galleries that receive ample natural light and offer framed views of the Arboretum and botanic gardens, event spaces, a museum store and café, a sculpture path, and outdoor terraces.

Structurally organized as interlocking, box-like pavilions at varying heights to create a unified visitor experience, the new building is clad in local sandstone and steel, integrating it into the surrounding landscape and geological composition of central Pennsylvania.

Front’s scope included the glass walls, stone walls, plaster soffits, and skylights. The skylights were designed for high thermal performance, condensation resistance, a high color rendering index, and ease of maintenance. All skylights are triple-glazed, with a 3D lattice integrated into the insulated glass unit within the outer gas cavity to block direct sunlight from entering the galleries. This light blocking prevents UV degradation of artwork and results in skylights with a very low SHGC rating. The outer face of the stone wall features local bluestone cut into a slender vertical proportion and hung in a rainscreen configuration in front of an insulated stud wall. The stud wall is designed for condensation resistance to address the high interior relative humidity of the art galleries and the cold exterior temperatures in central Pennsylvania. The glass walls are triple-glazed, thermally broken, and designed for condensation resistance and minimal framing. The glass walls behind the exterior metal screens have integrated, thermally broken brackets to support the screens in front of the glass.

Front consulted on the project from schematic design through construction administration.

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