Menil Drawing Institute

Winner of an award in the 2017 P/A Awards

“They’ve done a good job at not replicating the vernacular, but worked with the ‘ordinary’—these straightforward gabled roofs—to do something exciting with the thinness of the construction.”
— juror Jennifer Bonner

The first freestanding museum dedicated to modern drawing in the United States, the Menil Drawing Institute sits on the tree-shaded campus of the Menil Collection, in the Montrose neighborhood just west of downtown Houston. The institute was founded in 2008, but it wasn’t until 2012 that Los Angeles–based firm Johnston Marklee was chosen to design a $40 million home for it, as part of a master plan by David Chipperfield Architects for the 30-acre campus. Johnston Marklee is perhaps best known for designing private houses, and the firm brings a sense of contemplative domesticity to the 30,000-square-foot institute. Like other buildings in the Menil “neighborhood,” especially the original Menil Collection immediately to the northwest by Renzo Piano, Hon. FAIA—itself the recipient of the AIA Twenty-five Year Award in 2013—the institute has a binary relationship with the harsh Texas sun under which it sits: The wide overhangs of the roof and the leafy canopies of the trees help keep out 90 percent of natural light, while still allowing some spaces to use daylight as their primary source of illumination. The building is composed of three enclosed volumes clad in gray cedar—one each for study (called the “scholars’ cloister”), exhibitions, and administration—arranged under a common, white steel-plate roof. The roof also covers a multifunction, open-air space called the “living room,” which connects the three enclosed volumes and provides a venue for lectures, study, and social functions. Tree-filled courtyards dot the plan—two of which act as entry points for the building.

Project Credits
Project: Menil Drawing Institute, Houston
Client: The Menil Foundation
Architect: Johnston Marklee, Los Angeles . Sharon Johnston, FAIA, Mark Lee (principals); Nicholas Hofstede (project manager); Andri Luescher, Anton Schneider (project architects); Rodolfo Reis Dias, Douglas Harsevoort, David Gray, Letitia Garzoli, Maximilian Kocademirci, Mehr Khanpour (team)
Structural Engineer: Guy Nordenson and Associates; Cardno Haynes Whaley
Landscape Architect: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
Lighting Design: George Sexton Associates
M/E/P Engineer: Stantec
Building Envelope Engineer: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger
Civil Engineer: Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam
Landscape Lighting: Tillett Lighting Design Associates
Cost Consulting: AECOM
Acoustical/Audiovisual/IT: Arup
Security: Architect’s Security Group
Specifications: AWC West
Irrigation: WC3 Design
Soils: Olsson Size: 30,000 square feet
Cost: $26 million