Autry picks Texas design firm

The Autry National Center -- formed two years ago by a merger of the Museum of the American West (formerly the Autry Museum of Western Heritage) and the Southwest Museum of the American Indian -- has selected Overland Partners Architects to develop a master plan and design a greatly expanded facility for its 10-acre campus in Griffith Park. A major portion of the project will be devoted to displaying and storing the Southwest Museum’s vast collection of art and artifacts, amassed at its historic home on Mount Washington.

“We chose Overland Partners because of they way they think,” Autry President and CEO John L. Gray said of the San Antonio, Texas-based firm. “They understand the Autry National Center’s large idea -- that a convergence of diverse cultures shaped the American West. We think they will develop a design that will allow the value of that idea to come through.”

Overland was singled out in a search that narrowed a slate of 17 firms to four finalists. The others are Michael Maltzan Architecture and Lake/Flato of Los Angeles and Antoine Predock of Albuquerque. Currently working on a Chickasaw Indian Nation cultural center in Sulphur, Okla., Overland has designed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, a master plan for the San Antonio Museum of Art, and The Wildlife Experience, a museum near Denver.

“We have been involved in a lot of cultural projects that tell pieces of the story of the West,” said Bob Shemwell, a principal at Overland Partners. “The Autry is a unique place where all those pieces come together and you see the whole picture.”

Overland’s plan, to be presented to the Autry board of trustees by the end of the year, will enlarge the existing 148,000-square-foot building by at least 100,000 square feet.

The new structure will include about 20,000 square feet of galleries, 30,000 square feet of storage and a 50,000-square-foot study center that will house the two museums’ libraries. Construction is expected to begin in 2006 and continue for two or three years.

The Autry is engaged in a $100-million fundraising drive to increase its endowment, renovate the Southwest’s building and expand the Griffith Park facility. The budget for the Griffith Park project is being developed, the architects and museum representatives said.