M.A. Mortenson Co.

Scope Of Work

The Portland Art Museum will become more accessible to both visitors and passersby through the design of the new Rothko Pavilion, which will connect the museum’s two existing buildings and add 30,000 square feet of community and exhibition space. Hennebery Eddy is collaborating with Chicago-based Vinci Hamp Architects on the design. Our work evolves their original 2015 concept to advance the museum’s goals of new and enhanced art, program, and public space; increased accessibility within and through the museum; and support of the city’s urban landscape. The pavilion concept incorporates an existing Madison Street passageway between 10th and Park Avenues into a sheltered, public passageway with views into the commons and museum gallery — providing a welcoming and beautiful space to experience art for everyone who passes.

Prominent Portland architect Pietro Belluschi designed the museum’s original Main and Mark buildings in 1932, 1939, and 1970. The expansion will articulate a connections-driven campus, with the PAM Rothko Pavilion at its center — incorporating a community commons with a central museum entrance, a roof terrace, a sculpture garden, the Crumpacker Center for New Art, and an education and design lab. Additional elevators and enhanced above-grade connections between the Main and Mark buildings further the physical and intellectual connections between museum collections and programs.

The pavilion is part of a 20-year partnership with the children of renowned painter Mark Rothko, in recognition of the artist’s legacy in Portland, his childhood home, and the museum where he took art classes as a teen and where he received his first solo exhibition. Christopher Rothko and Kate Rothko Prizel will loan the museum major paintings by their father from their private collection.