Chicano Art Museum’s Design Embraces Modernist Roots
More than an open space for a world-class collection of Chicano art, the new Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture in downtown Riverside, California, transforms a 1964 modernist library into an architecturally distinctive museum full of galleries, gathering areas and an artist-in-residency center on two floors.
Led by the architect Page & Turnbull in collaboration with design architect WHY, the design of “The Cheech” is an expansion of the Riverside Art Museum. This public-private partnership between RAM, the city of Riverside and comedian Cheech Marin—one of the world’s foremost collectors of Chicano art—is the world’s premier center of Chicano art, including painting, sculpture, photography and video art by artists Carlos Almaraz, Judithe Hernández, Gilbert “Magú” Luján, Frank Romero, Sandy Rodriguez and Patssi Valdez, among others.