The Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum
The Dragon’s Pearl
A New Museum for The University of Texas at Dallas
This fall, the University of Texas at Dallas will unveil Phase I of the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum. The first of two art museums will be the Crow Museum of Asian Art, along with other collections. This new home and second location for the arts of Asia (our location on Flora Street in the Dallas Arts District will remain active) is the footprint of a burgeoning Asian art museum for our region. The collection of the Crow Museum, while catalyzed by the Crow family over four decades of collecting art they loved, is now an assemblage of many collections given and acquired over our twenty-five year history. The new museum, in its campus gown, takes on a new primary role as teacher to the more than 35,000 students, faculty and staff at the building’s footsteps.
The building is a vessel of access and invitation. Designed by a team from Morphosis Architects of Los Angeles led by design partner Arne Emerson, it has landed on the southeast edge of the campus as a sculpture of luminous white precast concrete with a glimmer of feldspar in the mix, subtly gilded and stunningly beautiful. There is a play on many things: inside/outside, carved/uncarved, open/closed, transparent/opaque, light/shade, looking out and looking in, but more than anything, this building is a place to step into and to feel held. Morphosis listened to our wishes to create a museum for everyone: Access points are visible at the ground floor, and before you enter you can see yourself in the building: at study, at play, engaged and alive.
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