Audain Art Museum / Patkau Architects

The form and character of the Audain Art Museum is deliberately restrained to provide a quiet, minimal backdrop to the art within and the surrounding natural landscape. The simple form of the exterior is clad in an envelope of dark metal which recedes into the shadows of the surrounding forest. Where this envelope is opened, to provide access in the entry porch or view from the glazed walkway to the galleries, the dark metal is overlaid by an inviting luminous wood casing. Public spaces in the interior, which are visible from the exterior, continue this warm luminous materiality.