With a few exceptions, art museums, especially those designed and built in the modern era, are for the most part explicitly designed for the purpose of housing, displaying, and protecting fine art. Conversely, the homes of art collectors tend to have been “regular,” albeit sometimes extraordinary houses, inside of which exceptional pieces of art happen to have been placed.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with hanging extraordinary art in a normal home. Famously, Herbert and Dorothy Vogol amassed over 4,500 exceptional pieces of art in their one-bedroom, rent controlled apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. This being an extreme case, there are some things you may want to consider when deciding that one of the permanent occupants of your home is going to be say an original Mark Rothko or even an original piece by an up and coming local artist. In a case like this, you may consider upgrading some of the systems within your home to behave more like a modern museum.

If you’re designing a new build, one meant to hold a collection, then you can employ these same strategies during the design and planning stages of your home and wind up with outstanding results. Regardless of whether you’re renovating or starting from scratch, exceptional works of art can have just as great an influence on the design of your home as the family who will occupy it.

Indoor Collections vs. Outdoor Collections

When most people think of private art collections, they think of indoor collections, namely drawings, paintings, and photography. Obviously however, there are other kinds of art that one might collect. One somewhat infamous example, only because it took almost 20 years to complete, is a retreat in Napa Valley built for Silicon Valley venture capitalist Richard Kramlich and his wife Pamela. Why this project took so long to complete is a story for another day, the primary point here being that there are other kinds of collections besides traditional 2D works. The Kramlich collection is primarily one of multi-media art (video) and so drove a very different sort of architectural solutions than say a collection of oil paintings might.

In addition to being a lover of 2D forms, I’m also a big fan of sculpture, especially outdoor sculpture. During my formative college years at Cornell University, I spent countless hours in the campus sculpture garden, a beautiful green meadow filled with all manner of cast concrete pieces. For collectors, especially ones with some acreage to work with, the layering-in of outdoor sculpture, on top of a great landscape design, can be one of the more rewarding ways of building a collection. If you love sculpture as I do, I recommend getting together with your architect and landscape architect early in the process. This way they can craft the indoor/outdoor and landscape solutions to suit your collection.

Regardless of the medium you most appreciate, I recommend starting by speaking with your architect about your collection and of course taking the time to walk them through every piece. Why is it that you’ve chosen these particular pieces? What does your collection mean to you? What are your plans for your collection in the future. The best architects will have had a deep education in fine art, from their years at university, and so should already speak the language of fine art, helping you to translate your appreciation into supportive architectural solutions.

Places vs. Paths

Museums, with their sprawling collections tend to be organized as a sequence of spaces connected by a clear walking path. Sometimes the pathway is more like a road that you move along, stopping in each gallery along the way. Sometimes, especially with older museums, galleries are laid out in enfilade fashion, meaning that each room is connected directly to the next through an opening, no corridors, paths, or hallways. Regardless, the way one moves through a museum has an impact on the overall experience. A good curator will take the sequence of spaces into account when hanging a show or collection. The order in which one views a series of pieces can have a very real impact on how the whole collection is perceived.

And so it goes with homes as well. The sequence one takes from say the entry hall, into the the main public spaces, and past any art that is either casually hung or more formally displayed, will influence ones overall experience of not just the individual pieces and the collection as a whole, but the home itself. The opportunity here is, just like with a well designed museum, to create a rich and compelling “conversation” between the art and the space in which it’s housed, in this case, your home.

Scale & Distance

The home design can be relied upon to accentuate aspects of your collection. Say one has an enormous Frank Stella. Here the architect would really need to think about what kind of space will be necessary to truly support a piece of that scale and impact. (This was a specific consideration while working on the design of LinkedIn’s San Francisco headquarters).

Or perhaps the collection leans in the other direction, in the form of tiny Medieval etchings. In this instance one might want to display them in a darker, more intimate space, where one is more inclined to get up close and personal with each piece.

A Conversation Between Art and Architecture

There may also be a stylistic “dialogue” to consider, one between the art and the architecture. Take for instance Peggy Guggenheim’s unfinished Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice. Here we see a distinctly classical, Beaux Arts architecture housing a very modern art collection. The decidedly bohemian contrast between old and new works brilliantly. However, one could just as easily flip the script and display a more classical collection inside of a very modern building. Flip it again and you might have a modern collection in a modern home. So you see, there are no rules, only thoughtful design solutions coupled with good curation.

Having a Big Idea

Ultimately, as with great art, great architecture comes down to having a big idea. After all, architecture is known as “the mother of all arts.” A truly great collection really deserves to be housed within just as great an architecture. And if we accept that great architecture requires an idea, that idea could very easily stem from the thoughtful containment of a specific collection. When these two media are in true conversation, something very special can happen. A clear and explicit dialogue between object and space can transform and uplift the experience of both where the whole truly is greater than the sum of the parts.

Design Your Artful Home

Is it possible to create a house that is home for your art collection, and you, and a work of art in itself?
Of course it is!

As an architect in California, especially working with clients in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas, it’s not uncommon to take into account the specifics for designing a home that has a dynamic relationship with the owner’s carefully collected and curated artworks.
If you are ready to explore the possibilities, Let’s talk!

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The Art of Designing a House for Art