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Tuned instrument: Piano's arts museum in Dallas rivals Kahn's in neighbouring Fort Worth in lucidity and the subtle use of limpid light

Architectural Review, The, June, 2004 by Peter Buchanan

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Piano's preferred solution of lighting the whole gallery evenly, rather than reflecting light primarily onto the walls where paintings would stand out when seen from the more softly lit centre of the room, is particularly apt for showing sculpture that may be placed at any point between the walls. Direct sun from above is excluded and diffused by cast aluminium panels that rather resemble egg-crates, with openings shaped and angled to admit only north skylight directly. Because Dallas's street grid is angled 45 degrees from north, so too are the openings in the sunshades which reveal differing amounts of sky and create differing patterns as you move around. The sunshade panels span between flanges propped up above the glass from the slender curved beams, which have spotlight tracks along their lower edges. The ends of these beams sit in brackets that swoop down slightly to connect (beneath concealed gutters) with the steel columns within the walls, and so also seemingly sit on the head of the stonework.

The character of the spaces is given not only by the lightness and transparency, as enlivened by the pared and repetitive structural elements and detail, but also by the sure judgement of proportion and dimension. The cross-section of the bays is based on a double square, 32ft (9.75m) between the walls and 16ft (4.87m) to the springing of the curved beams, which rise only another foot at mid-span. This breadth gives a feeling of great generosity and the relatively low ceiling, with only the shallowest curve, gives a contrasting feeling of intimacy. The galleries suit sculpture (and the occasional painting) very well but viewing paintings would be distracted by the views out and movement of space through the galleries.

Outside, the garden is set down a few broad steps from a plinth that extends out from the building. Integrating museum and garden are lines of trees that extend outward from the parallel walls, between which stand various sculptures. Terminating the garden, a planted berm acts as an acoustic barrier to the noise of the sunken motorway, which is further screened by the splashing of a row of fountains that stand out enticingly against the planted backdrop.

The Nasher is a building of great understatement and restraint, and also of the richness that comes from precision: precision in judgement of dimensions and proportions; and precision of engineering, craftsmanship and detail. Designed to show off another art form, it is an architectural instrument so finely tuned as to sing its own song softly in the background, a song so serene that some find it spiritual. (An equally apt metaphor, mechanical rather than musical, that keeps coming to mind is of a purring, highly-tuned machine.) Although it may also seem a slight building, almost as much like a garden centre as a museum, it is so well done, its artfulness raised to the extreme of seeming artlessness, that it enhances and even elevates the contemplation of sculpture.