Peter Carter
"An Art Museum" (MS 1958)
Advisor: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Ludwig Hilberseimer.
Others acknowledged: Walter Peterhans, Reginald Malcolmson, Alfred Caldwell, Frank Kornacker and Mr. William Goodman
Material: Steel
Structural system: Welded (orthogonal) roof grid supported by 2 columns per side
Maximum span: 120 ft.
“The aim of the project described in this thesis is to show how a building housing art exhibits could provide an environment in which the exhibits and the architecture exist harmoniously. The provision of flexibility for exhibit arrangement is facilitated when the plan shape and structural system are non-directional, thus creating an equilibrium; and when the main exhibition areas are free from structural supporting members. These basic requirements are best achieved with a clear structure of well proportioned elements in which part relates to part, and all parts to the whole.”
“The thesis begins with some thoughts on art and architecture, followed by a short historical outline of the various interpretations of the term “museum”. The specific problems of the proposed museum are then discussed and lead into detailed accounts of the planning, structure and enclosure proposals.”
“A doubly infinite [two-way] roof structure, thirty-six inches deep, of welded steel “I” beams spaced at twelve-foot centers over an area one-hundred-twenty feet by one-hundred-twenty feet and supported by eight columns at the perimeter was selected because it is logical on magnitude requirements, possesses the completeness sympathetic to a square plan, and is comprehensible from both the interior and the exterior, and from side to side, giving the building a wholeness of expression.”
