DIA BEACON
Beacon, NY / Completed 2003
The Dia Beacon project begins with a Nabisco box printing factory built in 1929. In 1999, the Dia Center for the Arts was searching for a home for their permanent collection and found this 292,000 sf then abandoned structure in the Husdon Valley. The factory was transformed into a series of galleries for the Dia's permanent collection by stripping back the building’s interiors, cutting the building to create new ceiling elevations, developing vertical circulation points, and adding new doors and windows. Open Office collaborated with Robert Irwin on the master plan of the building and design of the gardens and entry building. The factory building was a collection of 5 contiguous buildings and a basement that were originally used for the purposes of offices, cutting, creasing, printing, shipping, and storing. The space was transformed into 4 buildings naturally lit for painting and sculpture, an extensive subterranean media gallery, a bookstore, a cafe with offices above, and several building integrated artworks. Pre-existing sawtooth skylights and monitors were restored and augmented by adding a new white reflective roof to increase the amount of light in the building.
Specific spaces were crafted for works in the collection including large scale sculptures by Michael Heizer and Richard Serra that are permanently installed in the building. The project involved close collaboration with these artists in the siting of the works and gallery design.
collaboration with Robert Irwin
