By: Mateo Landayan
Downtown Fargo has plenty of places to spend an afternoon, but one of the biggest collections of art is sitting inside a former warehouse on First Avenue North. The plains art museum has been a part of Fargo’s art scene for more than 60 years, and this summer, the museum is beginning one of its biggest changes yet. With Olson Kundig leading the design of a new collection storage facility, parts of the museum that usually stay behind the scenes could soon be a part of the visitor experience.
The plains art museum began in 1965 as the Red River Art Center, created by Fargo Moorhead community members. In 1975, it merged with the O’Rourke Art Gallery Museum and became the Plains art Museum we know today. It later moved into a renovated International Harvester warehouse in downtown Fargo, where it establishes its permanent collection. Today, the museum has more than 6000 works of art and is North Dakota’s only American Alliance of Museums accredited art museum. Now, they’re getting a pretty big upgrade.
This summer, the Plains art Museum began construction on the first phase of its Connections Campaign. The project includes a new permanent collection storage facility designed by the internationally recognized architecture firm Olson Kundig. The facility will nearly double the museums collection storage space and introduce an open-storage concept, allowing visitors to see parts of the permanent collection that stay behind the scenes.
There’s a lot to put behind those doors. Plains Art Museum holds more than 6000 works, including indigenous, national, international, and regional art. In the past two years, the museum added more than 450 pieces to its collection.
Olson Kundigs work is a part of a much larger plan to change how visitors experience the museum, the Connections Campaign will eventually include a new welcome center that connects the existing museum building with the Katherine Kilbourne Burgundian Center for Creativity. The goal is to make the campus easier to navigate while giving visitors more ways to interact with the collection.
Construction began in June, making this summer the star of a major new chapter for the Plains Art Museum. The Museum has already spent decades growing with Fargo. Now, Olson Kundig is helping to create more room for that collection to grow, while giving visitors a much closer look at the art that usually stays behind the scenes and should be put out.
