Photograph by Katherine Bish
There is still work to be done to get the Adam Aronson Fine Arts Center ready for its October 16 public debut, but on July 2 the park hosted a soirée to christen the new 7,500-square-foot space.
“We took possession of the keys, and we had a housewarming party,” says Laumeier’s executive director, Marilu Knode. “Now we’re moving in!”
The $4 million Trivers Associates–
designed center, named for a co-founder of the park, adds a dramatic swooping shape to the site, which already boasts so much iconic geometry.
“It will galvanize the public’s attention to what it is we want to do,” says Knode.
She calls the building, a barnlike shape with a glass wall, a “game-changer.” It will create a clearer sense of the campus when people visit the park, permit more indoor programming, and generate rental revenue.
“We really take a lot of pride in how it refers to place. It’s not just plopped on our landscape,” Knode says. “We know that Matilda Laumeier had livestock on the grounds up until the ’60s; the barn shape is really an acknowledgment. By having one face be glass, it’s about maintaining that transparency. The building also faces the estate house, so we have the new building facing the old. These were all very deliberate decisions.”
Scholarship, too, will be made easier by the Aronson Center. For the first time in the park’s history, the entire collection will be on park grounds instead of partially stored off-site. That includes archival drawings, floor plans, small sculptures, and digital archives. “By having them all in one place, people can see them,” says Knode.
On October 16, an exhibition by New Delhi–based Raqs Media Collective will have both indoor and outdoor components. The group used the 1904 World’s Fair as a jumping-off point.
“That’s one of the things we really try to focus on at Laumeier, using St. Louis as a research platform for making new work,” Knode says.
The artists posed the question: “If the world is a fair place, then…” and the park solicited responses. Thirty-six of the answers will be stamped onto metal rings and wrapped around trees in the park. Inside the Aronson Center, the collective will display a customized version of a library, intermingling phrases from books and magazines.
Knode says that for years to come the center will contribute to the park’s mission, allowing artists to show off different methods for creating work and using the space in a dramatic way.
“I think people just can’t believe how beautiful this little piece of architecture is,” she says.
Laumeier Sculpture Park, 12580 Rott, 314-615-5278, laumeiersculpturepark.org
