Our Future Museum Our Future Museum

Since our museum site acquisition in August 2025, the Institute has successfully completed conceptual design, schematic design, and design development, which concluded with our masterplan submittal to the City of Novato. Building on incredible local support, we are transforming an iconic mid-century modern warehouse and surrounding 88-acre site into a global destination for art, design, making, learning, and gathering. Designed by world-renowned Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron with San Francisco–based EHDD as executive architect and Field Operations as landscape architect, the large-scale adaptive reuse project will feature one of the largest single-span spaces for art installations in the country, accompanied by flexible galleries, hands-on making spaces, a theater for performances, and top-tier dining offerings.

These additions to Marin and Novato’s dynamic communities will be set within an expansive public landscape inspired by the natural environments of the surrounding region⁠—creating a new cultural destination that builds on the Bay Area’s rich legacy of design and innovation. While our organization and museum are inspired by the Eames legacy, the museum is naturally much, much larger than any singular legacy.

The Institute is deeply privileged to be collaborating with Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, San Francisco–based EHDD, and landscape architecture office Field Operations to reimagine the design of the campus into a dynamic public space that honors its architectural legacy while opening it to new generations of guests.

Based in Basel, Switzerland, since 1978, Herzog & de Meuron has built some of the most enduring cultural institutions in the world, including the Tate Modern in London, M+ in Hong Kong, and San Francisco’s de Young Museum.

EHDD serves as the Institute’s longtime Executive Architect, having designed major cultural and institutional destinations, including the Monterey Bay Aquarium and The Exploratorium in San Francisco.

Field Operations is a leading landscape architecture firm headquartered in New York that has created landscapes of lasting international impact, including The High Line in New York and Presidio Tunnel Tops in San Francisco.

The campus was originally designed in the 1960s for the publishing company McGraw-Hill by consulting architect Jan Lubicz-Nycz for the office of John Savage Bolles, who was a celebrated modernist architect and cultural and civic leader in the Bay Area. The Birkenstock USA footwear company became the primary tenant at the site from 1994 to 2019, but the Novato landmark has lain vacant since 2020. Although the campus has been inaccessible to the public for most of its existence, over the years, the warehouse structure⁠⁠—with its distinctive saw-tooth roofline⁠⁠—has become a beloved local icon. It is a striking and enduring example of mid-century modern design.

1965 Year the campus was designed by Jan Lubicz-Nycz et al. for the office of John Savage Bolles

2025 Year the site was purchased by the Eames Institute on the 60th anniversary of its completion

2030 Year that we aspire to open the museum

2028 Year the museum is intended to start construction in earnest

134,000 Square feet of usable space in the original warehouse

185,000 Square feet of usable space in the future museum with the addition of a mezzanine level in key locations

35 Peaks crowning the hyperbolic paraboloid roof, an experiment in thin-shell concrete construction

36 Feet at the highest point of hyperbolic paraboloid peaks

3 Inches of thickness of the thin-shell concrete roof

400 Linear feet of the Great Hall spanning the building

240 Linear feet of the polished stainless steel bridge across the warehouse building

6 Number of discrete gallery spaces in the future museum

88 Acres of the campus site

10 Landscapes and gardens being constructed across the site