Panel curtain wall THE MODERN

aluminum and glass

The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth was designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando as a new building for the city's growing collection of contemporary art. Located adjacent to the Kimbell Art Museum designed by Louis I. Kahn, and near the Amon Carter Museum, designed by Philip Johnson, the previous location for the collection was housed in a small nondescript building also nearby. The new arthouse contains over 2,600 works of art, with a wide range of artworks by artists such as Chuck Close, Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol. The building was completed and opened to the public in 2002, and the facade is a mixture of aluminum and glass. Zahner was responsible for engineering, fabricating, and installing the aluminum facade. Thick plates of aluminum are a signature style of the architect Tadao Ando, and the surface is used throughout the building. The facade design used was a Zahner patented Inverted Seam wall panel serving as a pressure equalized rainscreen. The natural aluminum surface was bead-blasted and clear anodized in a custom alloy designed for the architect by Zahner. The aluminum panels were specially cast to achieve a highly consistent anodized finish. The 5mm thick plates are five feet and width by as long as 25' in length.