Savannah College of Art & Design Museum of Art
completed: 2011
location: Savannah, Georgia
The SCAD Museum of Art sits on a site that had once been dilapidated and abandoned. Now saved and restored, the expanded museum is a city anchor that acts as a vibrant center for university and student activities. The museum focused on the Central Railroad 1853 Depot, and is the only surviving antebellum railroad complex in the conutry and National Historic Landmark. The renovation actively reused the depot's remaining brick masonry walls and other materials salvaged from the site. The original depot was likely constructed by African-American slaves and made from bricks produced by slave labor. The Museum of Art sought to infuse the culture and history that created it while celebrating and preserving it. The museum now houses one of the finest collections of African-American art in the United States. The building boasts a glass walled art gallery where ther were once railroad tracks and the design culminates in an eighty-six foot tall steel and glass lantern which stands over a central atrium, and serves as a beacon in the skyline of Savannah representing the impact of the railroad, the African-American slave population, and SCAD on the city and outlying area.
*completed under partnership with Lord, Aeck, & Sargent Architecture, and Sottile & Sottile.
