Rockland is becoming one of Maine’s art and cultural meccas. The Farnsworth and Center for Maine Contemporary Art among other art and cultural institutions draw approximately fifty thousand visitors annually. Rockland’s waterfront is underutilized currently, while the adjacent, inland historic business district is thriving and dense. The heart of the Beggar’s Wharf Redevelopment is the Arts Complex. This collective of mixed-uses act as stewards for the public park spaces in, around, and on the full block development.

The Museum at the gateway corner begins as an interior ground seamless with the streetscape outside, unfurling upward through intermingling indoor and outdoor spatial sequences. Along the way are galleries, theater and lecture spaces, cafes and markets, terraces and parks. The historic Bicknell Factory Building, the original Beggar's Wharf hub, is reclaimed as a continuation of the Museum exhibition / event space, with educational and studio space in the large mezzanine suspended from above. The block is bisected by pedestrian throughways and a center-block sculpture garden and includes ground floor commercial, townhouses and artist-in-residence work / live studios.

The Museum is structured by a complimentary set of steel and concrete core and slabs plus a series of small exterior columns. A mushroom-like skin of cedar wood fins shroud the core and upper museum facade. The cedar fins appear continuous from interior to exterior, acting as doorway, sun and rain screen, railing, with patterning which morphs from every vantage point. The cedar fins are manufactured by techniques both new and old, digital and analog. Inside the cedar fins are CNC milled and maintain their warm natural color.

Outside the cedar fins twist via steam bending and grey with the elements. Credits: - MRLD - Principal - Mitchell Rasor