Will the real NC Art Museum please stand up?

I was able to get out over this past weekend to enjoy a beauti-mous day out at the outdoor sculpture area and path around the NC Museum of Art's campus known as the Museum Park or artwalk. You can check it out here.

'Tis a good thing the art walk is in such good shape (although it's still awaiting some real construction action on the yet to be constructed pavilion designed to be a model in environmental stormwater management with high art mojo to boot)  as the rest of the museum's grounds are a bit of a wreck at the moment. A highly anticipated museum addition is in the early to mid-construction phase and there's basically a whole bunch of exposed red clay dirt punctured by a little raw steel framing on that side of the site.

There is however some definite progress on the Thomas Pfifer-designed addition which promises to provide much improved galleries more in line with contemporary standards of gallery design.  Let's face it, the museum's Edward Durell Stone bunker building from 1983 (which in truth feels much older - surely I'm not alone in feeling this?) is a little lacking compared to the spaces being churned out now by the big starchitects who have been benefiting from the big museum building boom of recent years.  Nowadays the light filled soaring spaces that seasoned museum goers can experience from MoMA to the Tate to the Nelson-Atkins are not only getting them accustomed to some serious spatial extravagance, but now they are indeed expecting this every time out I think.  While the Phifer addition still has a long ways to go until completion, it will be a very interesting project to see as it moves toward completion.  One of NCMA's biggest problems is their hodgepodge of a campus which besides the Durell Stone building and Museum Park also includes a Smith-Miller Hawkinson designed amphitheater and concert pavilion as well as Barbara Kruger piece designed to be seen in aerial view.  There is a lot to see out there and it all sprawls around the grounds so the question of how the Phifer piece fits into this menagerie will be a very interesting one to watch...