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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact:
or Paul Schommer, 503-519-1672
Maryhill Museum of Art and Schommer & Sons Inc.
Honored as Engineering News Record Names the
Mary and Bruce Stevenson Wing the Northwest’s 2012 Best Project
The Maryhill Museum of Art project was selected by an independent jury of professionals who judged entries on five main criteria: Teamwork and Overcoming Challenges, Safety, Innovation and Contribution, Construction Quality and Craftsmanship, and Function and Aesthetic Quality of the Design. The jury could select one Best Project and multiple Awards of Merit in each category.
Jurors selected Maryhill Museum of Art’s expansion as overall Project of the Year, representing the best work across all categories.
“The building is aesthetically beautiful, but what people don’t see is that it had a high degree of challenge in terms of construction and engineering. That may not be immediately apparent to visitors, but it was apparent to our jury,” said Bruce Buckley, editor of ENR.
According to Buckley, the project also holds another distinction.
“What makes this project unique, not just among this year’s winners but among all our past winners, is that it was a sub-$10 million project that beat out projects with budgets in excess of a half-billion dollars. That is very impressive,” he said.
The Mary and Bruce Stevenson Wing opened to much fanfare in May 2012 and has been well-received by both visitors and the press. The $9.5 million expansion was the first in the museum’s history and the largest cultural capital project in the Columbia River Gorge in 15 years.
One of the wing’s most remarkable engineering features is a cantilevered deck that extends out over the Gorge nearly 20 feet in some places. During construction, the Schommer & Sons crew spent nearly two months excavating the fractured basalt on site. This is the type of hard, dense stone that the entire Gorge is carved from. After that, creating the cantilever required immense construction coordination and technical framework, including an intricate system of shoring to support the high-strength concrete while it cured in place.
The energy efficient Stevenson Wing is also on track to receive a United States Green Building Council (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold rating.
GBD Architects of Portland designed the Mary and Bruce Stevenson Wing.
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ABOUT MARYHILL MUSEUM OF ART:
Housed in a glorious Beaux Arts mansion on 5,300 acres high above the Columbia River, Maryhill Museum of Art opened to the public May 13, 1940 and today remains one of the Pacific Northwest’s most enchanting cultural destinations. The museum was founded by Northwest entrepreneur and visionary Sam Hill, who purchased the property and began building the house with dreams of establishing a Quaker farming community. When that goal proved untenable, Hill was encouraged by friends Loie Fuller, Queen Marie of Romania, and Alma de Bretteville Spreckles to establish a museum.
Maryhill Museum of Art boasts a world-class permanent collection, rotating exhibitions of the highest caliber, and dynamic educational programs that provide opportunities for further exploration by visitors of all ages. On view are more than 80 works by Auguste Rodin, European and American paintings, objects d'art from the palaces of the Queen of Romania, Orthodox icons, unique chess sets, and the renowned Théâtre de la Mode, featuring small-scale mannequins attired in designer fashions of post-World War II France. Baskets of the indigenous people of North America were a collecting interest of Hill; today the museum’s Native American collection represents nearly every tradition and style in North America, with works of art from prehistoric through contemporary.
Maryhill’s Outdoor Sculpture Garden features more than a dozen large-scale works by Northwest artists. The Maryhill Overlook is a site-specific sculpture by noted Portland architect Brad Cloepfil; nearby are Lewis and Clark interpretive panels. Four miles east of Maryhill is a life-sized replica of Stonehenge, Stonehenge Memorial, which Sam Hill built to memorialize local men who perished in World War I. Nearby, the Klickitat County War Memorial honors those who have died in the service of their country since World War I.
The museum was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. In 2001 the museum was listed as an official site of the National Historic Lewis and Clark Trail and in 2002 was accredited by the American Association of Museums. In 2012 the museum opened the Mary and Bruce Stevenson Wing, a 25,500 square foot expansion that is the first in the museum's history. The new wing boasts the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust Education Center, a collections storage and research suite, a new cafe and terrace, and the Cannon Power Plaza with an installation of sculpture, and sweeping views of the Columbia River Gorge and Mount Hood in the distance.
VISITOR INFORMATION:
Maryhill Museum of Art is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., March 15 to November 15. Admission is $9 for adults, $8 for seniors, $3 for youth age 7-18 and free for children 6 and under. Admission to the Stonehenge Memorial is free; it is open from 7:00 a.m. to dusk daily.
Sandwiches, salads, espresso drinks, cold beverages, and freshly baked desserts and pastries, as well as a selection of local wines are available at the museum's cafe, Loie's, from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily; the Museum Store features art and history books, jewelry, Native American crafts and other mementos.
Maryhill is located off Highway 97, 12 miles south of Goldendale, Washington. Drive times to the museum are 2 hours from Portland/Vancouver, 3.5 hours from Bend, 4 hours from Seattle, and 1.5 hours from Yakima. For further information, visit www.maryhillmuseum.org.
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| Maryhill
Museum of Art | 35 Maryhill Museum Drive | Goldendale,
WA 98620 | 509-773-3733 |
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