Nancy and Rich Kinder Building in Houston
- Barbara Zettel
Enclosed within vertical rows of satin-finished semicircular glass strips, the newly built Nancy and Rich Kinder complex is the third exhibition building to be erected on the campus of the Museum of Fine Arts in the Texan metropolis of Houston. It follows a steel-and-glass volume by Mies van der Rohe and a powerful structure clad in ashlar masonry by Rafael Moneo. Located in the immediate vicinity are also the Cullen Sculpture Garden and the Glassell School of Art, which Steven Holl Architects designed in 2018. In contrast to the existing developments, the new complex was conceived as a daylight museum: the translucent, alabaster-like glass outer skin filters the entry of light to create diffuse, shadow-free illumination internally, where 20th- and 21st-century art are on display.
