Figge Art Museum
David Chipperfield’s luminous glass structure
brings a clarity and rigor to the new Figge Art Museum in Davenport, IowaThe road to transforming the city-owned
Davenport Museum of Art into the privately run Figge Art Museum was long and
bumpy. But it resulted in a taut, gleaming glass, 100,000-square-foot structure
rising serenely above the banks of the Mississippi in this small Iowa city west
of Chicago. Although the museum leaders sought a structure that would be a
magnet for downtown Davenport’s revival, they weren’t looking for an
architectural extravaganza. As Thomas Figge, a prominent banker who engineered
the contribution of $13 million from the V.O. Figge and Elizabeth Kahl Figge
Charitable Foundation for the $46.9 million project, explains, the museum
sought an architectural expression that would be “timeless and classic.” The
paradigm was nearby––Eero Saarinen’s still-stunning Cor-Ten-steel Deere and
Company Headquarters (1962) in Moline, Illinois.Adding to the complexity of the task was the
desire to attract the tourists and residents of the Quad City area (Davenport,
Bettendorf, Iowa; plus Moline and Rock Island, Illinois) to a museum with a
collection of American regional, Haitian, European, and Mexican colonial art
that could not be called a compelling draw. So the museum expanded its program
to offer special exhibition space (7,200 square feet on two floors), art
studios, a 140-seat auditorium, and a shop and restaurant.A design that was timeless,
would attract droves of visitors, and spark up the downtown of a city of
100,000 sounds ambitious. On top of that loomed decisions about the site and
how to pay for the whole thing. Founded in 1925, the Davenport Museum of Art
had been most recently housed in a chunky, Brutalist concrete building removed
from the downtown area. After some intense negotiating, Figge got 2.2 acres for
the museum along the river, in an area where 19th-century Romanesque Revival
and Italianate brick commercial buildings alternate with parking lots. To get
more money (besides the Figge Foundation’s contribution and those of other
private donors), the museum went after $19.9 million in public financing from
Vision Iowa, a state program for cultural and educational development, and from
city funds available from River Renaissance, Davenport’s initiative for
jump-starting downtown projects.
David Chipperfield’s luminous glass structure
brings a clarity and rigor to the new Figge Art Museum in Davenport, IowaThe road to transforming the city-owned
Davenport Museum of Art into the privately run Figge Art Museum was long and
bumpy. But it resulted in a taut, gleaming glass, 100,000-square-foot structure
rising serenely above the banks of the Mississippi in this small Iowa city west
of Chicago. Although the museum leaders sought a structure that would be a
magnet for downtown Davenport’s revival, they weren’t looking for an
architectural extravaganza. As Thomas Figge, a prominent banker who engineered
the contribution of $13 million from the V.O. Figge and Elizabeth Kahl Figge
Charitable Foundation for the $46.9 million project, explains, the museum
sought an architectural expression that would be “timeless and classic.” The
paradigm was nearby––Eero Saarinen’s still-stunning Cor-Ten-steel Deere and
Company Headquarters (1962) in Moline, Illinois.Adding to the complexity of the task was the
desire to attract the tourists and residents of the Quad City area (Davenport,
Bettendorf, Iowa; plus Moline and Rock Island, Illinois) to a museum with a
collection of American regional, Haitian, European, and Mexican colonial art
that could not be called a compelling draw. So the museum expanded its program
to offer special exhibition space (7,200 square feet on two floors), art
studios, a 140-seat auditorium, and a shop and restaurant.A design that was timeless,
would attract droves of visitors, and spark up the downtown of a city of
100,000 sounds ambitious. On top of that loomed decisions about the site and
how to pay for the whole thing. Founded in 1925, the Davenport Museum of Art
had been most recently housed in a chunky, Brutalist concrete building removed
from the downtown area. After some intense negotiating, Figge got 2.2 acres for
the museum along the river, in an area where 19th-century Romanesque Revival
and Italianate brick commercial buildings alternate with parking lots. To get
more money (besides the Figge Foundation’s contribution and those of other
private donors), the museum went after $19.9 million in public financing from
Vision Iowa, a state program for cultural and educational development, and from
city funds available from River Renaissance, Davenport’s initiative for
jump-starting downtown projects.
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