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23-516: The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts ( AMFA ), formerly known as the Arkansas Arts Center , is an art museum located in MacArthur Park , Little Rock , Arkansas . The museum's most recent expansion and renovation was designed by architecture and urban design practice Studio Gang . The museum features a permanent collection of art along with occasional special exhibitions. Other parts include

46-447: A curving concrete structure and folded-plate roof spans the length of the building, improving the flow of visitors across the site. Blossoming out at the north and south ends, the central addition forms new entrances and public spaces that connect to the surrounding park and city beyond. The original Art Deco façade, which had become concealed by earlier additions, has been returned as the museum's main entrance. The $ 142 million renovation

69-511: A focus on ecological restoration and environmental stewardship. Projects include the revitalization of Tom Lee Park in Memphis that reconnects people to the long-neglected riverfront; two boathouses on the Chicago River that opened up access to the river's edge; and the transformation of a former Chicago airfield, Northerly Island , into a public lakefront park and biodiverse habitat. In 2023,

92-508: A highly sophisticated flight of sculptural fantasy". The Studio employs more than 140 people as of December 2023. The $ 465 million Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation opened in May 2023. The 230,000-square-foot addition includes six floors above ground, and one below. The Gilder Center welcomes visitors with a new, accessible entrance on Columbus Avenue that connects to central five-story atrium and creates more than 30 connections to

115-510: A research library and rooms for several art education classes. It also includes a restaurant and a gift shop. Many of the facilities such as the main atrium and the lecture hall can be rented for special events. The museum is a member of the North American Reciprocal Museum Association . In 2011, Arkansas.com named it one of the top 10 attractions in the state. The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts's permanent collection

138-593: A sale of student work the Saturday before Thanksgiving each year. The museum opened in 1937 in an Art Deco building constructed by the Works Progress Administration and designed by architect H. Ray Burks . Located in MacArthur Park, the original building features a limestone façade designed by Little Rock artist Benjamin D. Brantley and two carved relief figures, Painting and Sculpture personified. Over

161-569: A semi-regular basis. The show was designed to enhance to medium of drawing and to further awareness of draftsmanship as a contemporary art . Recognized by The Drama League as one of the best regional theater companies in America, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Children's Theatre is the only professional company in Arkansas that produces children's literary works for the stage. The Children's Theater

184-470: Is a very popular attraction featuring plays of classic children's stories. The Children's Theater gives children both the opportunity to witness live performances and to participate in stage productions. The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts' Museum School offers courses in a variety of media. Classes in life drawing , Ceramics , photography , woodworking , and jewelry, as well as workshops by visiting artists and children's classes are available. The school holds

207-537: Is focused on drawings, which the museum defines as any unique work on paper, and contemporary craft objects. The collection holds objects from such historically recognized artists such as Rembrandt , Pablo Picasso , Odilon Redon , Andrew Wyeth , and Edgar Degas . The collection also represents numerous important late 20th century and contemporary artists such as Susan Hauptman , Gregory Gillespie , John Connell , William Beckman , Enrique Chagoya , Jane Frank , John Stuart Ingle , Tim Lowly , and Odd Nerdrum . One of

230-606: Is the same stone used on the Museum's west side. The St. Regis Chicago , formerly Wanda Vista Tower , is a 101-story, 1,198 ft (365 m) supertall skyscraper in Chicago , Illinois . Construction started in August 2016, and was completed in 2020. Upon completion it became the city's third-tallest building at 1,198 ft (365 m), surpassing the Aon Center . It is the tallest structure in

253-727: The 1880s. The MacArthur Park Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. This article about a property in Little Rock, Arkansas on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Studio Gang The firm was founded by Jeanne Gang in 1997. One of the Studio's first built works, the Bengt Sjostrom Starlight Theatre ,

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276-650: The Studio completed several major cultural and educational projects, including the reimagination of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts , an adaptive reuse project, which was praised as a "new architectural landmark", and the Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at The American Museum of Natural History in New York, described by the New York Times "a poetic, joyful, theatrical work of public architecture and

299-420: The decades, the museum grew into a collection of eight structures, built in different eras and expressing multiple architectural styles. In 2016, architecture and urban design firm Studio Gang and landscape architect SCAPE were selected to reimagine the museum. The design restored and renewed as many of the existing buildings as possible, preserving their most carbon-intensive elements. A new central addition with

322-669: The district is MacArthur Park, site of the Tower Building of the Little Rock Arsenal and Little Rock's 19th-century military arsenal. The district extends north and west from the park for about four blocks, to East Capitol Avenue in the north and Scott Street to the west, and extends south, beyond Interstate 630 , to East 17th Street. This area contains some of the city's finest surviving antebellum and late Victorian architecture, including an particularly large number (19) of Second Empire houses, and achieved its present form roughly by

345-429: The existing building and grounds, resulting in a 133,000-square-foot facility. Studio Gang's design reused and restored as many of the existing structures as possible, which spanned multiple eras and architectural styles dating back to 1937. The Studio's design introduced a distinctive central addition that unites the entire complex, and "blossoms" out at the north and south ends to create new entrances and social spaces for

368-417: The existing museum. The atrium's architecture is informed by natural form-making processes such as the movement of wind and water that shape geological landscapes. To achieve the continuous visual form, the atrium is constructed with shotcrete . The curvilinear façade contrasts with the earlier High Victorian Gothic , Richardson Romanesque and Beaux Arts structures, but its Milford Pink granite cladding

391-575: The highlights of the Arts Center's collection is a collection of Paul Signac drawings and watercolours ; many are on public display in a gallery dedicated to the Signac collection. The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts hosts the Annual Delta Exhibition , a juried exhibition of artists from Arkansas and its border states, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. The exhibition

414-457: The tower as "a stirring work of skyline artistry...as if the waters of Lake Michigan had burst upward and transformed themselves into fluid, undulating tiers of glass." The tower has a notably smaller footprint than other supertalls in Chicago with a building height-to-core aspect ratio of 40-to-1. The redevelopment of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA) involved a comprehensive transformation of

437-436: The works of a number of contemporary artists. A competitive show of works from local school children is held annually as well. The Young Arkansas Artists show displays works from grades K-12 and awards prizes and honorable mentions for outstanding work. Schools with winning entries receive monetary awards to help promote their art programs. The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts also organizes their National Drawing Invitational on

460-577: The world designed by a woman , and forms a part of the Lakeshore East development and overlooks the Chicago River near Lake Michigan . The building comprises three interconnected volumes of different heights. Truncated pyramids called "frustums" are stacked in an alternating sequence, right-side-up and upside-down, lending the design its flowing rhythm. The towers have 6 different shades of glass. Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin praised

483-582: Was completed in 2003, and won praise from critics; the Chinese American Service League Kam Liu Center, finished the following year, garnered the firm additional accolades. Aqua Tower and the Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo, both completed in 2010, significantly increased the Studio global profile, winning acclaim from architecture critics. The Studio has played a significant role in reshaping urban landscapes with

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506-451: Was completed in April 2023. The museum has reported record-breaking visitor numbers, drawing over 155,000 guests from 18 countries in its first year following the renovation. MacArthur Park Historic District The MacArthur Park Historic District encompasses a remarkably well-preserved collection of Victorian buildings in the heart of Little Rock, Arkansas . The main focal point of

529-471: Was founded in 1958 to feature contemporary work by artists born in or currently living in the Mississippi Delta region. The museum also host an Annual Collectors Show & Sale . The curators of the museum bring in works—principally drawings—from a variety of galleries from New York and around the country. This gives local collectors access to works they wouldn't normally see and the general public to see

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