Wagner Murray Architects

  • Detail

    Structural Pillar

    The lone column standing in the plaza of Mario Botta's Bechtler Museum of Art is structurally necessary, but its girth is an illusion.

    3 MIN READ
    A lone column keeps silent sentry in the plaza of Charlotte, N.C.'s Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, which opened in January. Although the 47-foot-tall pillar is structurally necessary and part of the overall column grid, its girth is deceptive—a convex steel armature encloses the load-bearing concrete column within and supports a skin of terra-cotta tiles—and is meant to convey the building's massiveness.

Trending

Upcoming Events

  • Reimagining Sense of Place: Materiality, Spatial Form, and Connections to Nature

    Webinar

    Register for Free

  • Homes that Last: How Architects Are Designing a Resilient Future

    Webinar

    Register Now
All Events