Johnston Marklee's designs for expanding the Bass Museum in Miami Beach

The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach is planning to grow again, and California studio Johnston Marklee has shown how. The new wing takes over a 22,000-square-foot patch at the southwest corner of the museum's campus, and the big idea is to lift it off the ground. Two rectangular pavilions sit on a thin concrete plane raised to meet what the architects call resiliency guidelines, which likely nods to the county's flood risk from rising seas.

That lift leaves the corner open, with courtyards running underneath. Founding partner Sharon Johnston says this will widen public access to the museum. Upstairs, the pavilions hold the main galleries: sheer white walls, rectangular windows and a skylight on the one nearest the existing Arata Isozaki building. At ground level the walls are more textured, a backlit oculus lights the passage at night, and one blank pavilion face doubles as an outdoor screen beside gardens that reach into the trees of Collins Park.

Mark Lee frames it as continuing the site's story, keeping Russell Pancoast's 1940s Art Deco building, once a library, and Isozaki's idea of a porous campus. These are renderings only, with no timeline given. Worth knowing about if you visit the Bass or care how Miami builds for water.

Our summary of a story from Dezeen, published 21 October 2026. Read the original