Inside Safdie’s new Crystal Bridges Museum expansion that bridges over ponds

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art will open a major expansion designed by Safdie Architects on June 6th and 7th. The scheme, which we reported on in 2024, will add 114,000 square feet of new galleries, educational facilities, and public spaces to the Crystal Bridges campus in Bentonville, Arkansas.

The project extends the museum’s original facilities, also designed by Safdie, and introduces new exhibition and community spaces intended to broaden access to American art and arts education. The expansion includes two dedicated gallery spaces, among them a large temporary exhibition hall featuring a custom skylight system designed to support rotating exhibitions.

The scheme continues the museum’s looping circulation system and completes a figure-eight plan spanning two stream-fed ponds. Materials and forms draw from regional building traditions and the surrounding Ozark landscape...