Reno gambling on allure of mysterious black box
By Scott Sonner
Associated Press
RENO, Nev. — With its single black staircase and breathtaking rooftop sculpture garden, Nevada's "biggest little city" has a renovated art museum that takes the town a step beyond the gambling industry.
Associated Press
The new Nevada Art Museum is a four-story, 60,000-square foot black steel building reminiscent of a ship at sea. It is four times the size of its predecessor and includes a 180-seat theater, several galleries and a restaurant.
Reno's new Nevada Museum of Art was designed by architect and sculptor Will Bruder.
Docent-to-be Sheila Apkarian of Reno records a tape about the work of Frida Kahlo, one of the artists featured for the museum's grand opening exhibition. She is studying "Diego on My Mind."
But the feature that has drawn the most attention is the rooftop sculpture garden and its views of the snowcapped Sierra.
"This is sort of the crown of the building," said architect Will Bruder. "There aren't a lot of great roofs in the history of architecture."
A June grand opening culminated a seven-year effort to replace the former 15,000-square-foot museum, as Reno looks increasingly to the arts to attract tourists and diversify its gambling-based economy.
"We were a good small-sized museum. Now we're a good mid-size museum, and we're aiming to be an outstanding mid-sized museum," said Peter Pool, president of the board of directors.
"For the first time, we'll be able to exhibit works in our permanent collection and major traveling exhibitions that we've never been able to attract to Reno before," he said.
That includes the grand opening headliner, "Diego Rivera and Twentieth Century Mexican Art: The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection," featuring works by Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
Bruder, 56, a sculptor from Arizona known for his public buildings, got the idea for the rooftop when he spotted the window-walled "Sky Room" topping Reno's now-demolished Mapes Hotel.
Nevada Art Museum
Museum visitors enter a grand hall atrium where a single black staircase supported by a center pole invites them to make the climb 60 feet up toward the ceiling.
At the top, they make their way through glass doors to the roof. Rising to the south and west is the Sierra, including 10,900-foot Mount Rose. The west view is partially obscured by sections of black steel that make a wall with nine openings, from 8 inches to 3 feet wide.
Bruder acknowledges "many were disgruntled" when he began erecting the wall, in part to serve as a wind break. "It's about focus. We have created a space that is like a camera lens. ... There is the edge of Reno and the skyline and there is the world beyond," he said.
"Reno is interesting architecturally, but there's a lot of boxes here. "There's not a lot of things beyond the box. A black building is sort of unheard of in Reno."
Bruder said he designed the museum to serve many needs.
"It's a place in the city where people can come, a place of conversation, a place of challenge, a place to allow the citizens of Reno and visitors to see the world from a different view," he said. "That's what this mysterious dark vessel is all about."
