cream and tan exterior of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art

February 7, 2024

Inside the Refreshed Arkansas Museum of Fine Art

2023 Best of Year Winner for Domestic Museum

Overhauling a confusing warren of seven buildings added in a disorganized fashion to the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art in Little Rock since its opening in 1937 involved multiple interventions, from an addition to sensitive renovations, totaling 133,000 square feet. For Studio Gang, the key to unlocking the puzzle was a new circulation spine that weaves north to south through the site. It’s topped with a standout pleated concrete roof plane, its underside composed of 6,000 individually suspended plywood-slat “vertebrae.” One side of the spine terminates in a glass-wrapped lounge elevated on stilts, with a plaza beneath. The roof graduates down as it reaches the opposite side, ending at Park Grill, the museum’s restaurant.

See Interior Design’s Best of Year Winners and Honorees

Explore must-see projects and innovative products that took home high honors.

2025 WINNERS

a curved wall of windows at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art

an airy interior of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art

a gallery with wood floors in the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art

Projects
Sculptural Columns Set The Scene For This Coastal Hotel Restaurant
Atelier Gulla Jonsdottir crafts an intimate dining setting for Marelle with hand-plastered walls in a dusky terra-cotta hue and undulating plaster columns.
Projects
OTJ Breathes New Life Into A Storied Mixed-Use Facility In Washington D.C.
Nodding to the facility’s curved glass façade, OTJ blends curvilinear forms with blue-gray and cognac hues for the Pelli Clarke & Partners building.
Projects
Architecture Roams Wild At This Chinese Eco-Farm
Various Associates’s LuxeIsland Farm blends nature and cultural tourism through bamboo domes and open-air pathways where animals and visitors wander together.