Tuesday
28 JanTHE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN’S JACK C. TAYLOR VISITOR CENTER TO BE HONORED AS 2025 BUILDY AWARD WINNER
The Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums (MAAM) is pleased to announce the recipient of this year’s Building Museums™ Symposium’s Buildy Award: The Missouri Botanical Garden’s Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center in St. Louis, Missouri. In addition, three outstanding projects have received Honorable Mentions: University of Iowa’s Stanley Museum of Art building in Iowa City, Iowa; the Mattatuck Museum expansion project in Waterbury, Connecticut; and the reimagining of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock, Arkansas. These projects were selected from a competitive pool of submissions representing institutions across twelve states. The recognized projects showcase a diverse range of museum types and sizes, reflecting excellence in museum design and innovation.
The Buildy Award recognizes the Missouri Botanical Garden for its leadership and exemplary accomplishments in the planning, design, and construction of its facility, as well as its transformational impact on the organization after opening. The Garden’s leadership will accept the Buildy award on March 7, 2025, during MAAM’s 20th Building Museums™ Symposium. The award recognizes the institution, its director and staff, and the design and construction teams whose completed projects demonstrate high achievement in the lessons of the Building Museums™ Symposium- careful, creative planning and diligent implementation leading to institutional sustainability. The purpose of the Buildy Award is to increase awareness within the museum field, and by the public at large, of the value of museums, botanical gardens, and other cultural sites. It underscores the importance of their ongoing creation, rehabilitation, and expansion to serve future generations.
The Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center has been a transformative addition to the Garden, a National Historic Landmark renowned worldwide for its plant collections, research, and public education programs. The new visitor center, along with the Garden’s 79 acres of display gardens, enhances its mission of connecting people with plants. This $100 million project replaced the previous visitor center through a carefully phased construction process, ensuring continuous operations and public access throughout the transition. The new facility now accommodates the Garden’s 1 million annual visitors, a significant increase from the 250,000 visitors the original center was designed to serve.
Designed with accessibility top of mind, the visitor center offers a range of thoughtfully crafted amenity spaces, including an arrival lobby, visitor services, a conservatory, an auditorium, classrooms, a café, a restaurant, a gift shop, restrooms, and event spaces. New gardens and outdoor dining areas further enhance the visitor experience. Careful planning of the facility, including the addition of a separate events center, allows the Garden to host public and private events simultaneously while maintaining ongoing public access. The expanded interior spaces dedicated to science education and horticultural exhibitions enable the Garden to offer increased public programming year-round, even during inclement weather.
This highly customized building incorporates biophilic design in a series of stunningly beautiful interior spaces that also provide connection and views to the exterior gardens. By elevating the main level of the visitor center from the public street level to the Garden level nine feet above, connection to the gardens and accessibility are enhanced and major spaces all enjoy controlled daylighting.
The Buildy Award Committee noted several factors that contributed to the success of the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center submission:
- The high quality of design, particularly the beautifully daylit spaces and the subtle and elegant introduction of botanical themes into the details of the project, including the entrance lobby lantern’s perforated scrim that evokes a clearing in the woods; restaurant lighting fixtures that recall blooming peonies; wall panels with botanical specimens; and the lobby’s terrazzo floor with inlaid brass leaves representing a dozen species of trees native to the region.
- The many sustainable design features of the project include a reduction of energy costs of 45% from a LEEDv4 baseline, use of healthy, sustainably sourced materials, and reduced water consumption.
- The expert planning of the project provides important functional improvements that enhance the visitor experience, support the Botanical Garden’s financial sustainability with well-designed, universally accessible and unique revenue generating spaces, and the project’s integration with the existing Missouri Botanical Garden’s facilities and gardens.
The Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center project team included the Garden’s Executive Leadership Team, Ayers Saint Gross, Alberici Constructors, Tao + Lee Associates, IMEG Corp, KPFF, Civil Design, Inc., and Michael Vergason Landscape Architect.
The Buildy Award is the only award program that recognizes the museum leadership and design team for their part in guiding the planning and construction process to a high level of success. Projects of different scales, types and budgets are eligible, with the emphasis being on the impact of the project. The museum director must address the competing interests of staff, trustees, financial contributors, artists, architects, engineers, contractors, visitors, and other parties. Winners of the Buildy Awards have managed to guide their teams to create lasting assets for their institutions and their communities within a financially sustainable framework.
The Buildy Award Selection Committee consisted of the following participants:
- Ann Trowbridge, Smithsonian Institution (retired), Chair
- Kahla DeSmit, Executive Director, MAAM
- Averie Shaughnessy Comfort, Presque Isle Light Station, Lake Erie, PA
- Amanda Gillen, Frick Museum, Pittsburgh, PA
- Julia Joseph, Whiting-Turner Construction Co., Parkville, MD
- Martha Morris, Founder, Building Museums Symposium
- Deborah Schwartz, President, Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums,
- David Searles, Jacobs/Wyper Architects, Philadelphia, PA
- Monika Smith, DLR Group,
- Sandra Vicchio, Sandra Vicchio Associates, Baltimore, MD
- Nancy Walsh, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Denver, CO
- Nick West, Colgate University Museums, Hamilton, NY





