The Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas houses the most comprehensive collections of Spanish art outside of Spain. With works dating from the 10th to the 20th centuries, the internationally renowned collection contains more than 1,000 objects and paintings.
In 2001, a new 66,000 square foot building was built to house the burgeoning collection. “The museum’s permanent collection simply outgrew the old facility and expansion of the collection was hampered by limited storage and exhibition space,” explained Bridget Marx, one of the museum’s curators and the collections manager.
The museum doubled its exhibit areas and expanded its education and meeting areas, special events space, and retail areas. It also expanded its storage capacity to house its entire permanent collection.
High-density storage systems were utilized in four different storage areas to provide enough capacity to house the expanding permanent collections, as well as provide safe storage for temporary exhibits.
“We wanted to take full advantage of the benefits of high-density storage in the new building,” explained Marx. “Our goal was to house the entire permanent collection.”
A Spacesaver powered art rack houses more than 150 paintings in the permanent collection. With sufficient capacity, they are able to avoid having to double hang works, as they did in their old storage space. Spacesaver also provided specially designed stationary storage for the permanent collection of works on paper. Flat, open shelving with openings as narrow as 3" provide dense, convenient storage for inactive, unframed art work.
For the university collections, a Spacesaver high-density system was designed with art racks for hanging art, as well as shelving for larger bulky objects. Drawers are used for the works-on-paper collection. A third art rack is utilized in another storage area for temporary exhibit storage.
The three electrically powered art rack systems were specially designed to maximize storage in the space available and also provide the most optimally safe storage.
Systems were designed with long carriages, some as long as 49', and 14' high racks. Because the extreme size specifications required extra bracing at the top of the systems, an overhead track was custom designed to secure the racks as they moved.
Another special feature is a custom-designed overhead dust canopy. Spanning the entire carriage length, canopies provide a dust barrier when aisles are closed, further protecting the exposed, hanging artwork. “The canopies not only provide safety from dust, but also from exposure to the overhead ceiling lights,” Marx explained.
