The Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center

The Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, Montclair, New Jersey, USA
2010

ikon.5 architects

The Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center Building Montclair

The Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center New Jersey

The Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center needed to upgrade and expand its exhibition and support space for the museum that uses the life lessons of Yogi Berra, the New York Yankees and baseball to teach and promote good sportsmanship, respect, integrity, social justice and the pursuit of excellence. The museum also wished to transform its solid, opaque, unwelcoming road side appearance. The challenge, for this non-profit organization, was to expand space for exhibiting baseball's finest memorabilia, to create space for collaborative teaching, to create flexible space for hosting rental functions and gatherings and to transform the exterior entrance appearance within a very modest budget.

Our approach creates a multi-functioning transparent gallery that serves as a flexible exhibition area, collaborative teaching space and reception hall. This one room gallery is a vitrine for displaying baseball memorabilia and the mission of the museum and learning center. The simple glass box addition is a 'billboard' advertising the mission of the museum and learning center. It has a visible presence and impact on the main access road that leads to the adjacent minor league ballpark that the museum shares its site with. The transparent pavilion allows the exhibits, temporary or permanent, to be on display from those driving by along the access road. In this way, the museum has an active façade for advertising the treasures of baseball within and promoting the mission of the learning center.