Studio Gang-designed Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, formerly Arkansas Arts Center, to open in 2022

The Arkansas Arts Center has a new name: the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. Leaders gathered [...] provide an update on its facility, which is being renovated and expanded. [...] Designs for the additional $14 million in funds, Ramirez said, include new plans for 15% more gallery space than initially planned, added programming and “transforming even more of MacArthur Park into landscape space designed to host a variety or programs and events.”A new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts building, designed by Studio Gang with landscape architects SCAPE and Little Rock-based Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects, is already under construction in Little Rock's MacArthur Park. "The central gesture of the new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts — a folded, thin-plate structure running through the museum complex — lends AMFA a highly visible new architectural identity and connect its diverse programing spaces," explains the project description. © Studio Gang"This roofline spans the length of the museum from north to south, blossoming toward downtown Little Rock at the north and Historic MacArthur Park to the south. In concert with new construction, the design once again reveals the original 1937 limestone facade of the Museum of Fine Arts, a precursor to AMFA, as the main north entrance." © Studio Gang and SCAPE"Inside, the central stem opens up a new axis of pedestrian circulation through the building from Crescent Drive at the north and opening in...