WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS.- Williams College President Maud S. Mandel announced today that SO-IL architects will develop the conceptual design for a new building for the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) in Williamstown, MA. The project would provide the first stand-alone facility for WCMA, widely acknowledged as one of the most influential institutions in its field, whose collection has been housed since 1851 in Lawrence Hall, the College’s first library building.
Based in Brooklyn, New York, SO-IL has quickly risen to prominence since principals Jing Liu and Florian Idenburg founded the practice in 2008. Known for designs that inspire intellectual and social engagement, the firm has been widely praised for projects including the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the University of California, Davis (its largest building to date) and an art campus for the non-profit arts organization Amant in New York. Among the many honors the firm has received are the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program Award, the AIA Young Architects Award and, most recently, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Award in Architecture.
President Mandel selected SO-IL following the recommendation of a 12-member Architect Selection Committee composed of college representatives from WCMA, the faculty, and across campus, who brought their collective expertise in arts, architecture, diversity and inclusion, sustainability and community engagement to the process. The selection committee considered nearly 40 national and international architecture firms, then narrowed the candidates to a short list of four. The decision was informed by a two-year planning and program study conducted in consultation with Deborah Berke Partners, New York. In parallel with the design work for the new museum, there also are plans for a detailed programming study of historic Lawrence Hall to explore complementarities with the new museum and understand its full potential as an arts and academic space.
Subject to approval by the college’s Board of Trustees once the conceptual design phase is complete, the project is scheduled to proceed in alignment with WCMA’s centennial year of 2026-27. The new museum, to be located on the former site of the Williams Inn in Williamstown, will offer substantial gallery space for exhibiting more of the 15,000 works in the museum’s collection, as well as facilities for easy access to collections for student, faculty and visiting scholar requests. It will be designed as a collaborative work environment and will provide dedicated space for the community and other groups to gather. Sustainability will be a driving force in all design and operations decisions, as will a desire to reflect and respond to the natural beauty of the landscape. The conceptual design process is expected to last approximately eight months.
