Fulfilling the Portland Museum of Art’s mission of Art for All through generous community spaces interwoven with 21st century galleries in a campus setting, the design combines the urban scale of downtown in generous galleries with intimate new harbor spaces as living rooms for local communities. The diaphanous building evokes Maine’s historic marine industrial buildings as well as the typology of the artist studio, while remaining flexible, adaptive, and future-forward.

The sawtooth skylights and glazed façades filter daylight into the interior galleries and community spaces, inviting visitors to experience Maine’s natural light, a continual source of inspiration for Maine’s artists, in an authentic way. The entry, a volumetric, daylight-filled atrium, links new north and south entries connecting the new building with the existing Payson, McLellan and Clapp House.