Arts Heritage/History

Asheville Art Museum Architecture

Asheville Art Museum’s North Wing Past, Present + Future

While the expansion of the Asheville Art Museum continues this summer, work is focusing on the renovation and preservation of the Museum’s North Wing. The preservation aspect is critically important, as the building has a fascinating history, contains impressive architectural features, and is a unique symbol of Asheville’s heritage.

The building that houses the North Wing was built in 1925 as Pack Memorial Library. It served the community in that capacity for more than a half-century until the new library was built at 67 Haywood Street in 1978. The original library building remained mostly vacant until it was renovated for the Asheville Art Museum in 1992 as part of the Pack Place Education, Arts & Science Center.

Designed by architect Edward L. Tilton (1861–1933), the North Wing building is an excellent example of the Second Renaissance Revival style, and one of the most articulate examples of a neo-classical institutional building in Western North Carolina. Architectural features include symmetrically arranged elevations with a three-story entrance arch. The building is faced in white Georgia marble and ornamented with a low-relief classical cornice.

Tilton was a New York architect of national renown, specializing in libraries, museums, and educational buildings. He designed more than a hundred libraries across the nation, and was a key adviser to the Carnegie Foundation. Asheville had its own version of Andrew Carnegie in George W. Pack, the city’s foremost civic benefactor, who donated both the site and the previous building on Pack Square for use as a public library. The choice of Tilton as the architect reflected the importance attached by the city to building a public library of national stature.

It was constructed around a steel core that was an integral part of the building’s structure. This allowed most of the building to remain open, with high ceilings and massive arched windows. Those same elements, however, doomed the library’s future growth, as the building’s design was inherently inflexible. Some of the library’s original furniture, however, remains in use today in the North Carolina Room of the “new” Pack Memorial Library on Haywood Street.

Because of the North Wing building’s historical status, it’s important that the architectural elements are preserved. When the construction and expansion project is complete in 2018, the North Wing will not only be renovated and restored with respect to its architectural history, the building will also have a function that honors its previous role as a library. The new North Wing will house the Museum’s library, education studio, boardroom, and administrative offices.

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