Atkin, Olshin, Lawson-Bell and Associates' plan for the Collections Storage and Study Mainwaring Wing is both a return to the 1896 master plan and a continuation of Mitchell and Giurgola's Modernism. The wing is a state-of-the-art storage facility with environmental control, and office and workspace for those who maintain and study the collections.
Extending from the small north facade of the Academic Wing, it has four floors and a basement, matching the height of the Administrative Wing and enclosing the courtyard on the east end. The wing's most distinguishing feature is its inventive, dual personality. On the eastern facade (not visible in photograph), bronze panels with limestone surrounds face the concrete foundation; and an arcade lightens the massive structure at street level, perpendicular to the Franklin Field arcade. Conversely, the northern and eastern facades are a post-Modern interpretation of the original buildings. Not only the proportions, materials, and coursing are matched, but decorative details are continued, such as ceramic tiles for adornment. An illuminated bay facing South St. acts as a visual equivalent to the apse on the 1899 building directly across the lower courtyard.
The wing was completed in May 2002. After more than a century of construction, through the efforts of four Museum directors and three distinct architectural partnerships, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has a final wing which simultaneously greets the new millennium and commemorates the centennial of the original building.
