Atkin Olshin Schade Architects • The Philadelphia Museum of Art sits in Fairmount Park, one of the city’s most highly trafficked green spaces, but it has long been plagued by an all-too-urban problem: parking. Originally conceived as part of Jacques Gréber’s 1917 plan for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the site had been encroached upon by unsightly surface parking and was partially overgrown. The team devised a plan to create a 442-spot underground parking lot, topped by a green roof. “The parking is really heroic,” juror Bill Valentine said. “To do that, to get it underground so that [Philadelphia-based fellow juror] John Cary doesn’t even notice it when he jogs by there, [is a feat].” The jurors were more taken with the parking below grade, but above ground, the green roof performs some heroics of its own: It has enough underlying structure to withstand the weight of monumental sculpture, giving the museum an outdoor exhibition space it had long been lacking.
Project Credits
The Anne D’Harnoncourt Sculpture Garden and Parking Facility, Philadelphia
Client Philadelphia Museum of Art
Architect Atkin Olshin Schade Architects, Philadelphia—Tony Atkin (design principal); Michael Schade (managing principal); Jason Austin (project architect); Sara Patrick (staff architect)
Landscape Architect Olin—Susan Weiler (partner-in-charge); Laurie Olin (partner); Bryan Hanes (associate); Brad Thornton (project manager); Elise Geyelin (senior landscape architect)
Construction Manager L. F. Driscoll Co.
Civil Engineer Pennoni Associates
Structural Engineer CVM Engineers
M/E/P/FP Engineer Spectra Engineering, Architecture and Surveying
Parking Consultant Walker Parking Consultants
Lighting Consultant George Sexton Associates
Security Consulting Ducibella Venter & Santore
Geotechnical Engineer Schnabel Engineering
Fountain Consultant Blue Mesa Design
Size 195,588 gross square feet
Cost $29 million total construction cost
Photography Jeffrey Totaro
