Design Stories 3.02

RAC Sculpted Space

Sculpting Space. Western Art is often described as the painting of positives while Asian Art the painting of negatives—of depicting that which is not there, not what is. In many ways, I think of Rochester Art Center (RAC) as being the sculpting of the void. In plan and elevation, the design is extremely simple. Two shifted rectangles. One narrower and taller, one wider and shorter. One touches the ground, one does not. Thus the buidlng has an atrium and a glassed floor captured by the two solid elements.

This sculpted void allows the flow of river and park through the building. A serpentine stone retaining wall reaches out toward the city, twists under the zinc Box and bows back out to become a park terrace. The twist in wall parallels the bend in river so part of the building cantilevers over the water. This spatial connection is heightened by the water’s reflection that bounces over surfaces throughout the interior void. Thus the spatial void becomes far more animated than the stoic solids that contain it.