BE PART OF THE CONVERSATION

Dia:Beacon Parking Beacon, NY

EDITOR'S DESIGN CHOICE

View of entry drive, parking lot, and museum at Dia:Beacon. Museum visitors experience the parking lot as the entrance to the building. Image courtesy of Masck under Creative Commons license

Dia:Beacon parking lot and adjacent sidewalk. The metal edging around planted areas recalls Richard Serra sculptures installed at Dia:Beacon. Image courtesy of Sodapop under Creative Commons license

Dia:Beacon parking lot. The grid of trees shading the parking lot extends beyond the edges of the lot. Image courtesy of Jennifer Rosenblum under Creative Commons license

The gardens at Dia:Beacon, with which the parking lot landscaping is integrated, also have metal-edged planting areas and hedges of trees. Image courtesy of Jpmm under Creative Commons license

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Dia:Beacon is a contemporary art museum in the Hudson River Valley, around 60 miles north of New York City. The museum is a five-minute walk from the Metro North train station in Beacon, NY. Dia:Beacon opened in 2003 in a vacant Nabisco box-printing factory that was built in 1929.

The master plan for the Dia:Beacon site was designed by the architectural firm OpenOffice in collaboration with artist Robert Irwin, and the parking lot was an integral part of their design. Dia:Beacon’s gardens—which include the parking lot—were viewed as an extension of the building and the art displayed there. Irwin and OpenOffice treated the site as a holistic experience that begins the moment visitors enter the museum property. The entry road, parking lot, allee of trees, and entry court leading to the museum buildings function together as an outdoor lobby, welcoming visitors to the museum.