Thirty-four years after his death in 1990, Keith Haring’s Picasso-adjacent drawing style and his subway illustrations in thick black marker have become synonymous with New York City. Now, a new archival wing by HWKN Architecture and C.T. Male Associates is underway at Bard College named after the late artist. The Keith Haring Wing will be attached to the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS) at the New York–based institution, a program which trains future artists and museum professionals.
HWKN Architecture, a New York firm, previously completed an expansion at CCS Bard in 2015. The forthcoming Keith Haring Wing will augment this extension, nearly doubling the amount of space available for students and faculty.
“Paying homage to the existing CCS Bard Library and Archives, we designed the new Keith Haring Wing to weave into the past while looking ahead to the future of the campus,” said Matthias Hollwich, HWKN Architecture founding principal.
The forthcoming Keith Haring Wing will provide 12,000 square feet of library and archival space for CCS. The addition will more than double the current capacity afforded to CCS Bard’s library and archives. This will allow Bard to serve an increasing number of students, scholars, and researchers.
Renderings by HWKN Architecture show a utilitarian, one-story masonry structure finished with minimalist, light-filled interiors. Barrel vaults are perched above the main reading and studying areas, allowing day light into the spaces far from windows.
On view in perpetuity at the Keith Haring Wing will be an untitled drawing on concrete block Haring made in 1981. The expansion responds to the continued growth of CCS Bard’s research center, college officials shared. In recent years, the department has acquired works from gallerist Gavin Brown, scholar and art historian Eddie Chambers, and curator Robert Storr.
The design by HWKN Architecture will yield six new office spaces to support visiting faculty and researchers. It features a greatly expanded reading room tucked up against open research stacks with capacity for over 30,000 additional volumes.
There will also be a 30-person classroom and smaller collaborative study room for CCS Bard to host courses, workshops, and study groups. This will particularly benefit the undergraduate Art History and Visual Culture program at Bard, along with other college departments.
The Keith Haring Wing is a $10 million capital project that was kickstarted by a $3 million from the Keith Haring Foundation (KHF), along with myriad other philanthropic groups including Marieluise Hessel Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg Foundation. Today, KHF also sponsors a visiting faculty position at Bard called the Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism.
Construction on the Keith Haring Wing will break ground in 2025.
