It is architect David Adjaye’s first major project since the allegations that rocked his firm – a bold museum for Princeton University with exhibits that sneak up on its students. But do the insides match the outsides?
A cluster of serrated concrete bunkers has landed in the heart of Princeton University’s leafy campus in New Jersey, sending tremors through this twee Oxbridge fantasyland of gothic turrets and twiddly spires. The new addition’s brute, blank facade gives little away from the outside. Wrapped in rows of vertical grey ribs, contrasting with the arched windows of the surrounding stately stone halls, it has the look of a secure storage facility, keeping a beady eye out through a single cyclopean window.
The vault-like quality is fitting. This bulky new bastion is a repository for the university’s astonishing collection of art and antiquities – a 117,000-strong haul spanning everything from Etruscan urns and medieval staircases to expressionist paintings and contemporary sculpture. Previously housed in a hodgepodge of extensions and additions accrued over decades, the collection can now shine in its own purpose-built castle.
