US studio Page Southerland Page has added a Corten-steel addition to a museum in Texas that complements a historical structure and was designed to look like "a chunk of landscape".
Located on an elevated site that looks down over the town of Alpine in East Texas, the extension to the Museum of the Big Bend was placed on a triangular site to the north of the original 1930s building.
The existing structure was made from local stone quarried from the nearby Trans-Pecos mountain range.
Page has added a Corten steel addition to a museum in East Texas
The Museum of the Big Bend focuses on art and cultural artefacts from the American West, and the Corten-steel extension was created to house a newly gained collection of paintings by American artist Tom Lee. It was clear from the outset that Page Southerland Page wouldn't be able to utilise stone for the addition, according to project lead Larry Speck.
This was due to both budgetary reasons and the low chance that newly quarried stone would fit well with the 1930s building.
The original stone building was constructed in the 1930s
The studio instead opted for Corten steel, both for its ability to stand up in the dry, hot climate of Alpine and for its colour, which Speck said goes well with the stone of the original building.
Conforming to the triangular site, the studio created an angular structure with a large extruded patio and a series of semi-circular cutouts in the facade, which were lined with windows to create viewpo...