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The Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates (VSBA) addition to the Allentown Art Museum might not be as well-known as the firm\u2019s other museums, such as the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London or the Seattle Museum of Art. It nevertheless embodies the same postmodern concepts about history, urban context, and architectural semiotics that are central to the Learning from Las Vegas\u00a0authors\u2019 work. In late August, the museum announced that it will be moving to a new facility by Studios Architecture in downtown Allentown, Pennsylvania, leaving the future of its VSBA-designed home uncertain.<\/p>\n
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The planned Studios Architecture-designed, ground-up relocation is in downtown Allentown.\u00a0Courtesy Studios Architecture<\/p>\n
News of the museum\u2019s relocation comes less than 15 years after the completion of the VSBA expansion and renovation. In 2012, VSBA finished a three-story extension to the north of the original neoclassical brick portico along Fifth Street, adding galleries, visitor amenities such as a caf\u00e9, education spaces, and storage. The museum occupied the former First Presbyterian Church, built in 1901, and the addition continues the scale and rhythm of its column front but with a contrasting palette of glass and metal panels outlined with LEDs. A granite base extending from the portico is engraved with the museum\u2019s name, functioning as signage for the institution.<\/p>\n
The addition and renovation were originally intended to be an approximately $25 million project, explains Allentown Art Museum CEO Max Weintraub, but due to the difficulties of fundraising circa 2010, during the worst of the Great Recession, the budget was far less. The project description on VSBA\u2019s website lists the construction cost at just $8 million for 35,000 square feet of renovation and 9,000 square feet of addition. \u201cIt was a well-intentioned design,\u201d Weintraub told RECORD, \u201cbut the circumstances of fundraising and executing a project during that economic downturn only exacerbated some ongoing problems of working within a structure that wasn\u2019t purpose-built to be a museum.\u201d Speaking to RECORD at the time<\/a> of the project\u2019s completion, VSBA principal in charge Daniel McCoubrey noted that the recession also resulted in the firm\u2019s staff being nearly halved.<\/p>\n The VSBA-designed addition was completed less than 15 years ago. Photo \u00a9 Matt Wargo<\/p>\n The museum conducted feasibility studies and determined that due to years of deferred maintenance, problems left unresolved by the 2012 intervention, and issues likely resulting from those budget cuts\u2014such as insufficient thermal breaks along the new Fifth Street facade\u2014the best course of action would be to construct a purpose-built facility. New York City\u2013based Studios Architecture\u2014which, with Selldorf Architects, recently won the competition<\/a> to overhaul the Louvre in Paris\u2014will spearhead the new 55,000-square-foot, $55 million museum at the intersection of 10th and Hamilton Streets.<\/p>\n A gallery space in the Allentown Art Museum addition. Photo \u00a9 Matt Wargo<\/p>\n The building will replace a disused police substation. Although less than a mile from the original, the museum hopes to capitalize on a recent urban revival, where a flurry of new high-rise housing developments, hotels, nightlife venues, and even a science center have reenergized the storied Rust Belt downtown. In 2025, Studios Architecture completed the Archer Music Hall, less than a block from the museum\u2019s new location. Drawing a contrast to the original, Weintraub explains the vision for the new community-engaged building is \u201ca museum as a town square rather than a museum as a temple.\u201d David Burns, a principal at Studios, describes the design as a porous series of available spaces, \u201ca great hall rather than austere galleries.\u201d<\/p>\n Currently, the future of the VSBA-designed addition remains in question. In recent years, both the Sainsbury Wing<\/a> and the\u00a0Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego<\/a>, another VSBA project, received controversial overhauls by Selldorf Architects, which Denise Scott Brown vehemently opposed.\u00a0Principal Annabelle Selldorf\u00a0spoke to RECORD<\/a>\u00a0about those criticisms. The Allentown Art Museum will likely face significant modifications if not demolition.\u00a0According to Weintraub, the institution is in conversation with some commercial and public organizations about buying the facilities. Weintraub assuages concerns, saying that there has been no discussion about potential demolition. At the very least, however, the debossed name on the facade will need to be changed.<\/p>\n Construction on the new Allentown Art Museum is expected to begin in summer 2027, with completion anticipated by 2029.<\/p>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Allentown-Art-Museum---Exterior-03-(VSBA-Matt-Wargo).jpg\"\/ "\\"Image")
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