Passageway, Mississippi museum of art
Jackson, Mississippi
Project Description
With the opening of a new Westin Hotel, the narrow passageway between the Mississippi Museum of Art and the Thalia Mara Hall will become an important pedestrian connector between the hotel, the museum and art garden and the convention center. The museum and hotel developers are collaborating to convert this utilitarian space into an urban oasis, extending like a tentacle to draw visitors to the art garden.
The floor of the passageway is a Choctaw basket pattern where lines of liriope frame paved sections and planting beds. Visitors can walk on the liriope,or play at stepping from stone to stone.
The pattern creates triangular beds along the edges for planters or sculpture. Details from the wood sun screens at the main museum entrance reappear in screens and trellises along the passageway.
With a grant from the NEH, the museum has approached the Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis to design a gateway sculpture. The forms and materials of the gateway will be continued in a series of sculptures along the walkway. Cables stretched from the trellises or sculptures on the Thalia Mara to the museum colonnade to support vines and lighting will create a mutable canopy for the space.
DESIGN TEAM
- Madge Bemiss, Madge Bemiss Architect
- Ornamental Metal Museum, Memphis