Nomadic Museum


Location:	PIER 54 - Manhattan, NY

Building Series:	Custom

Building Size:	67' wide x 672' long (20.4m x 204.8m)

Application:	Traveling Exhibition / Museum

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Background

For those of you who have had the opportunity to experience the works of Gregory Colbert, you will appreciate the innocence and beauty of his photography. Over the past 10 years, Colbert has covered the eastern continents interacting with different animal species and capturing their natural beauty on film. Though the photographs may seem unrealistic or somewhat fantasy-like, they are actual moments that have happened at locations around the world. The relationship between human and animal species that once was is no longer - Colbert strives to bring that relationship closer together in his photography.

In 2002, Colbert debuted his works for the first time at "Ashes and Snow" in Venice, Italy. The exhibit created such an overwhelming response; it inspired Colbert to introduce the venue to other locations around the world.

The Need

Colbert thought the best way to facilitate such a venue would be to create a transient museum - an idea he claims came from the traveling patterns of elephants. This would enable his exhibit to be shown around the world to all different types of people. Colbert wanted to create an inviting environment - one that wasn't intimidating for spectators but was accessible to a wide audience. He wanted the exhibit to spark conversation and intrigue based on people involved, the art exhibited and the location itself.

To attain his goal, Colbert contacted well-known Japanese architect Shigeru Ban to assist him in the design of the museum. Ban is known for his structures made from unexpected or recycled materials.

The Project

Ban designed a 45,000 square foot (4180.6 m² ) museum space from 148 multi-colored steel shipping containers and recycled paper tubes. The containers are stacked four stories high in a checkerboard type arrangement around Pier 54 and are held together by twist locks.

The idea behind the containers was their availability in every place the museum will travel to. Rather than having to ship the entire exhibit to locations around the world, only enough shipping containers to house the fabric and materials for the structure will have to be transported.

Based on the relationship and past projects with Bovis Lend Lease and the customizations needed for this project, Summit Structures was the obvious choice for the roofing of this 67' wide x 672' long (20.4m x 204.8m) museum. The roof, custom-designed by the Summit Structures team, consists of 18 modules bolted together. Each module consists of 2- 2' x 10' (0.6m x 3.0m) ViperSteel rafters; 1 - 4' x 10' (1.2m x 3.0m) Vipersteel rafter; and four PVC white fabric panels - tensioned with 2" x 4" (5.0cm x 10.1cm) fastening tubes. An ethafoam core is placed between the rafters to make a water tight seal. Fabric was secured with aluminum extrusion - custom made with a flat bottom to fit tightly against the steel. Black PVC fabric lines the interior roof panels to provide the museum with the theatre-like feel.

Summit Structures also provided two end walls as well as the infill panels between the containers - angled rectangular steel frames with fabric laced around them in order to seal the checkerboard design of the shipping containers.

The roof panels - consisting of framework and PVC fabric - supplied by Summit Structures were designed and manufactured at Summit Structures' corporate office in Canada; shipped to a site in New Jersey where they were assembled by a specialized team of professionals and barged over to the pier in New York. Bryon Heisler, a tech representative for Summit Structures, was on site for the entire install and was impressed with the timing of the project. Heisler worked with several different construction crews from all over the U.S. to complete the job on time.

As if the project wasn't intricate enough but to be built on a pier, over water, in New York, in the dead of winter, made it that much more complicated.

Located on Pier 54 on the Hudson River in Manhattan, NY, the Nomadic Museum is housed on the same pier where the survivors of the TITANic were docked in 1912. Given the history of this dock, the construction of this museum was not an easy task. Contractors knew the pier would hold the building itself, but weren't sure it would withstand the weight and movement of the crane needed to lift the roof panels onto the shipping containers. Therefore, the whole structure was built with a water-based crane - housed next to Pier 54.

Construction crews faced inclement weather on several occasions - both snow and wind hindered the construction of the museum. Crews had to be especially conscious of the winds surfacing day-to-day when raising the roof modules onto the shipping containers, as the fabric panels could take off like a kite if the wind got under them. Crews paid close attention to surrounding flags to know when it was safe to proceed with the cranes.

The first trailer arrived in New York on January 3rd with four more coming through the following month. Summit Structures was able to meet all timelines for the install in time for the grand opening of the museum on March 3rd.

Grand Opening

The museum and exhibition will be at the historic pier on the Hudson River in Manhattan, NY from March 5 to June 6. It will be traveling to the Santa Monica Pier in California and will be on display from Dec 4, 2005 to Feb 28, 2006 and then on to the Vatican for the summer of 2006.

The entire museum will be on the road - 37 of the 148 cargo containers will be shipped from location to location. The additional containers will change with location.

The grand opening of the museum was held on March 3rd and has been received very well by the people of New York. Visitors of the Nomadic Museum enter through the skeletal arch of the old pier and proceed into the museum along a large wooden runway surrounded by suspended photographs between giant paper tube columns. Visitors also enjoy a one-hour film that is continuously projected on a wall in a theatre at the museum's far end along with a slideshow projected on the roof seen from outside while driving by the structure. The emotional impact of the exhibit is so overwhelming; visitors find it hard to describe their feelings. "Remarkable", "ravishingly beautiful", "touching", "peaceful", "unbelievable", "spiritual", "like being inside a temple", "stalled my heart", and "brought tears to my eyes", were among the comments.

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