Abingdon, Virginia
Schulhof Rashidi Architects is the Design Architect and Architect of Record for the William King Museum of Art
The William King Museum of Art (WKMA) serves Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee by providing arts education, exhibiting fine art, and preserving the region’s cultural heritage. In 2022, Schulhof Rashidi Architects was selected through a design competition to lead the design of a new addition to house the Worrell Collection of Art.
The addition reorients the visitor experience within the existing museum and across the larger site. It features over 10,000 new square feet of floor space across three levels and connects to the existing galleries. A new lobby, café and Virginia Gallery, highlighting the work of regional artist Suzanne Stryk, are included on its main level while the entire upper floor is dedicated to the Worrell Collection. The lowest level provides appropriate art receiving and storage facilities that facilitate the work of the collections management team. On the exterior, visual elements on the facade reflect WKMA’s collection: brick patterns evoke the warp and weft of Appalachian quilts and custom glazed bricks reference the region’s clay pottery.
The museum’s site, a hilltop marking the highest elevation in Abingdon, Virginia, also includes a historic school building, which houses the museum’s heritage galleries, classrooms for youth education, and administrative offices, and the Art Lab, a former municipal building that has been transformed into an educational art facility for adults. The new addition and landscape design unite the two existing buildings and extend the museum’s art and education programs across the 26-acre campus, emphasizing the connection between the Worrell Collection and the natural beauty of Southwest Virginia.