Francis Kéré and SOM were announced the architects of the forthcoming Las Vegas Museum of Art last year. In Sin City, a town of casinos and neon lights, the architects will be responsible for designing Las Vegas’s first premier, standalone art venue. The museum evokes its desert landscape and is planned for a 1.5-acre site in Symphony Park, a 5-mile jaunt north of the Strip. Kéré is the design architect and SOM is the architect of record.
Initial renderings conveying the early design showed a masonry volume with a dramatic latticed cantilever, punctured by triangle apertures, that recall the desert. New renderings of the Las Vegas Museum of Art were shared this week by the development team, which includes the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), revealing an updated iteration.
The new renderings show a 60,000-square-foot building designed to accommodate 2.4 million annual visitors. The architecture is directly informed by the Mojave Desert, baobab trees of the African savanna, and modernism in Las Vegas (think: Guardian Angel Cathedral by Paul Revere Williams; schools, hotels, homes, and banks by Zick & Sharp).
The facade will be composed of locally sourced stone from the surrounding Red Rock Mountains, giving the ensemble a reddish hue from afar, echoing the Mojave Desert’s colors and patterns.
A dramatic canopy evocative of the original design will extend far out over a plaza. This extensive roof will act as a front porch, architects shared. A staircase with a pronounced, curved shape will be the primary egress point. Its compelling form is visible from the exterior thanks to expansive floor-to-ceiling windows. Galleries will be located on the second floor and take cues from Williams’s Guardian Angel Cathedral, a Las Vegas modernist landmark from 1963.
Elaine Wynn, cofounder of Mirage and Wynn Resorts, and also a co-chair on LACMA’s Board, is a benefactor supporting the independent institution. The Las Vegas Museum of Art will borrow artworks from LACMA thanks to its partnership, and mount exhibitions and adapt educational programs together.
“We see the Las Vegas Museum of Art as a gathering place where the entire community can recognize itself and take pride in a building that reflects the history and spirit of the city and the beauty of its natural surroundings,” Francis Kéré said in a statement. “Las Vegas is a place of architectural marvels and of a timeless, awe-inspiring desert landscape.”
The opening is scheduled for 2029.
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