Shelburne Museum
Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education

The Center for Art and Education is the gateway to Shelburne Museum, introducing visitors to a unique campus of historic northern New England structures and folk art.

The siting of the Center responds to two vantage points, announcing the Museum from a main road to the east and providing panoramic views of the Adirondack Mountains to the west. Design context called for the new building to be well-grounded and responsive to the scale and simplicity of its surrounding historic structures. The resulting design – with deep eaves, flat roof, and high-performance glass curtainwall – provides a contemporary note on the Museum campus, while employing traditional Vermont material palette of wood and granite.

Built into a natural slope, thermal mass enhances the energy performance of spaces on its lower level.  On its upper level, the lobby and multi-purpose room offer dramatic views and an abundance of natural light. Climate-controlled galleries on both levels feature changing exhibitions of objects from the Shelburne Museum and from other museums. The lower level also provides an education studio for adult and children art classes.