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unified, strong, large-scale presence. Conversely, the smaller, historic PMA buildings on the Spring Street side of the build site required the Payson
Building to have a smaller-building form that would accommodate these historic neighbors. Cobb’s solution was to design a wide façade made of red brick and gray granite lintels with semicircle openings, reflecting the design of the five-story Libby Building, which formerly occupied the location. This façade has the street presence of a Renaissance palazzo, enclosing the public square. Behind the façade, Cobb gradually reduced both the height and length of the building until the building terminated in the back left corner, one fourth as wide and tall as the main façade. By stepping the building back and down in this way, Cobb was successfully able to grant primacy to the neighboring historic buildings.
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clear path through the museum. Cobb claimed that this layout reflected the lack of grand boulevards and grids in the modest cities of New
England. Further, Cobb’s layout of the galleries allows a visitor standing in one gallery to see glimpses of several other galleries, often on multiple levels, through the wide gallery doors. This gives the visitor a sense of adventure and anticipation as he or she travels through the galleries.
120:. Clerestories permit maximum sunlight to enter the gallery while avoiding direct rays hitting the gallery walls. This natural light is accompanied by incandescent track lighting, although this artificial lighting is often left off during the day. The shifting light entering the museum animates, diffuses, and shapes the galleries below, celebrating the museum's collections with “Portland Light.”
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To reflect and accommodate the diversity of the Homer paintings, Cobb not only strategically placed walls to create different-sized gallery spaces but also varied the ceiling height from 12.5 to 25 to 37.5 feet (3.8–11.4 m) high. These diverse gallery spaces were intentionally designed to provide no
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Cobb chose to comprise the structure of the Payson
Building of a concrete frame with concrete block infill, rendering the façade essentially a “curtain wall.” This led to criticism from other architects that Cobb gave the building a false, billboard-like front. Cobb claims, however, that the façade
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and the
Federal style brick buildings near the museum. Furthermore, from the ground looking up at the Payson building, one is struck with how the façade’s semicircular openings encase the air and light of Maine, making it part of the building. A similar effect is achieved with the building’s many
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Behind the controversial façade lie many galleries with clean white walls and pine floors with granite stripping set into the floor. This granite marks off twenty-foot by twenty-foot spaces, thought by Cobb to be the smallest desirable gallery space. Around these square spaces, granite strips also
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Cobb’s largest challenge was to create a building that provided an enjoyable and powerful location to view art while relating to the diverse conditions of its awkwardly shaped urban site. The tall brick buildings enclosing the other sides of
Congress Square required the Payson building to contain a
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Beyond these more famous influences, Cobb also had a strong desire to link the Payson building to Maine. He remarked, “The
Portland Museum is a regional museum in a region that is itself a museum, so I believe I had an obligation to connect the new building to the city and the region.” To express
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paintings and ten million dollars to the museum. Similar in theme to these Homer paintings, the Payson building contains a collection of contemporary paintings and short-term exhibitions created by Maine artists, focusing on regional themes.
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symbolically represents the interior. The circular insets and cutouts are metaphors that recall the square interior galleries and the rectangular brick insets signify the rectangular interior circulation spaces.
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delineate rectangular circulation spaces around each square. Over certain granite strips, Cobb placed walls with wide cutout doors to shape various-sized gallery spaces.
197:) as his chief design materials. These materials refer to the vernacular architecture of Portland, defined by the brick commercial buildings and warehouses of the
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Schmertz, Mildred F. "Form and figure; The
Portland Museum of Art, Charles Shipman Payson Building, Portland, Maine." Architectural Record 171.13 (1983): 108–199.
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Campbell, Robert. “Modules
Stacked Behind a ‘Billboard’.” American Architecture of the 1980s. Washington, D.C.: The American Institute of Architects Press, 1990.
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The museum replaced the Libby
Building (at right in this c.1900 view). The Free Street Baptist Church was demolished to make way for the Chamber of Commerce.
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octagonal clerestories. These clerestories also recall the viewing decks of the region’s lighthouses as well as the octagonal
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In designing the Payson
Building, many significant works of modern architecture influenced Cobb. The façades of Kahn’s
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Conforti, Joseph A. Creating Portland: History and Place in Northern New England (Revisiting New Eng. Hanover:
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the museum’s connection to Maine, Cobb used locally made materials common to Maine (water-struck
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Thorn, Megan. Charles Shipman Payson Building. Portland: The Portland Museum Of Art, 1983.
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Perhaps the most compelling feature of the galleries is the lighting, rivaling that of
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Cobb, Henry Nichols. Where I stand: Lecture. Cambridge: Graduate School Of Design,
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inspired lighting for the Payson Building. Further influences include a portico by
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partially inspired the façade of the Payson building. The famous lighting from the
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Brenson, Michael. "New Portland Museum Pursues a Human Scale."
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lanterns based on the Dulwich College Art Gallery by
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180:Regionalism
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399:70°15′45″W
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226:2009-10-01
158:Fort Worth
144:arcade in
118:John Soane
114:clerestory
110:Louis Kahn
134:Ahmedabad
34:(PMA) in
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199:Old Port
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235:Sources
195:granite
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174:Venice
168:, the
166:Ledoux
152:, the
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187:brick
138:India
338:ISBN
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