The legacy organization has announced plans to turn the midcentury property in Novato into an art and design museum.
That pointy-roofed midcentury building you can’t miss on a stretch of 101 north of San Francisco finally got a new owner. The Eames Institute just announced it has purchased the Birkenstock building—a famous Marin structure called such for having served as the company’s distribution centers for years—and its surrounding complex with plans to turn it into an internationally renowned art and design museum.
“To share my grandparents’ vision with the world is the honor of a lifetime,” Llisa Demetrios, granddaughter of Ray and Charles Eames and the chief curator of the Eames Institute, says in a statement. “Ray and Charles’s boundless curiosity for solving problems through design has been at the core of the Eames Institute’s mission, and this expansion will allow us to share those gifts with our community on an even larger scale.”
The Eames Institute just announced plans to turn the Birkenstock building in Marin into an art and design museum.
Courtesy of the Eames Institute
The institute says the renovation of the 88.5-acre site and its campus, which holds the Birkenstock building and an adjacent warehouse, will include spaces for showcasing the Eames family archive, art exhibitions, maker workshops, and educational programming, though it did not specify what kinds. The grounds will also include green spaces as well as dining and retail.
A rendering of the proposed museum includes green spaces, walkways, and a refreshed facade.
Courtesy of the Eames Institute
See the full story on Dwell.com: Marin’s Famous Birkenstock Building Just Got a New Owner—the Eames Institute
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