Project Feature: UT Blanton Museum of Art

Our latest project feature takes us right into the heart of our hometown of Austin, Texas.  One of the most vibrant and culturally diverse cities in the United States, Austin is known for its lively music scene, tech industry, natural beauty- and of course, for the University of Texas at Austin- one of the largest colleges in the U.S.

The Blanton Museum of Art is not only one of the country’s premier university art museums, but it is also the largest university art museum in the U.S., with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent collection galleries, classrooms, an auditorium and a cafe. In 2019, the Blanton received a $20 million gift from The Moody Foundation, and began fundraising for a $35 million campus redesign that was spearheaded by Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta. The reimagined and revamped design was unveiled in summer 2023, with the intention of unifying and revitalizing the Michener and Smith Buildings, and a new outdoor social and collaborative space called The Moody Patio (named for its benefactors).

The westernmost Michener building, originally built in 2006, was redesigned to feature a Sentech-designed, engineered and manufactured jumbo steel vault that houses a jumbo glass window feature at the entrance and interior viewing deck nicknamed “The Lookout”. This second-story seating gallery and jumbo insulated glass picture window allows visitors to gaze out over The Moody Patio from an impressively-sized specialty structural glass vault soaring 27-ft high and 10-ft wide.

Sentech’s scope included 3 VetraSpan structural glass walls and 1 glass guard rail for the Michener Building, and 5 VetraSpan structural glass walls and 8 glass guardrails at the adjacent Smith Building. The jumbo glass feature window, in particular, presented numerous challenges during the design, engineering, manufacturing and installation phases of the project. Balancing the height tolerance and edge curvature was a key focal point in the project design, and ensuring the highest optical quality to the uniquely shaped jumbo glass panels was critical to project success.

The adjacent Smith Building, originally constructed in 2008, also features a similar yellow steel vault around the East entrance that stretches 20 feet tall and mimics The Lookout’s circular frame, but is flipped the other direction.

The Moody Patio is framed by a shading grove cluster of 15 petal-shaped shading structures designed by Snøhetta. This shade canopy contains dramatic petal structures made of perforated metal that not only act as shading devices, but also serve as a rainwater collection system for the native foliage around the pathways.

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