National Academy of Design

Photos by Andy Ryan

2011
Bade Stageberg Cox
nEW yORK, ny

Museums & Galleries
Education & Libraries

The National Academy Museum and School was founded in 1825 by a group of prominent artists in New York City. Housing a public collection of over 7,000 works of American art from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries in a historic townhouse on 5th Avenue’s Museum Mile, the Academy sought to upgrade the current structure and refresh the institution’s identity with a $3.5 million renovation to both the Museum and the School.

Acting as a beacon of information, the new museum entrance draws visitors in through curiosity. LED uplights concealed within wall coves graze light across the Corrian ceiling, showcasing the carved names of both current and past Academicians. The historic galleries feature new track and fixtures that maintain museum-quality lighting but with minimal interventions and smaller, more efficient track heads.

The renovated school entryway acts as both an orientation center and an art gallery to exhibit students’ work. Fluorescent fixtures integrated into the ceiling tiles create an energy-efficient, unified pattern of light across the large entry space. These luminaires have a separately circuited center accent, providing a flexible lighting solution with both general and accent lighting for the art walls. A similar lighting scheme was implemented in the multi-purpose room along with a separately circuited combination linear fluorescent and incandescent wall-wash built into the existing perimeter cove.