Herzog & de Meuron Turns Former Birkenstock Warehouse Into Eames Museum

Herzog & de Meuron will convert a 1965 warehouse into an 88.5-acre museum campus dedicated to Charles and Ray Eames, opening in Marin County, California in 2030.

The project, called The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity, sits in Novato and covers art, ideas and nature across a sprawling site. The Basel-based firm leads the architecture, working with San Francisco practice EHDD.

The scheme is chiefly an adaptive reuse job. The centerpiece is a midcentury warehouse designed in 1965 by Polish architect Jan Lubicz-Nycz with modernist architect John Savage Bolles for the McGraw-Hill publishing company. Its origami-like concrete roof reads, from a distance, like white mountain peaks. Birkenstock later used the building as a warehouse before leaving the campus in 2020.

What will the conversion involve?

The architects will preserve the full 185,000-square-foot structure — roughly the floor area of three football fields — while turning it into contemporary exhibition space. Plans call for:

• Warm, timber-clad interiors and column-free galleries
• A café, museum shop, theatre and maker spaces
• A neighbouring former office building repurposed for retreats, talks and other programming

Visitors will see design rarities from the Eames archive alongside contemporary art exhibitions.

Landscape firm Field Operations will handle the grounds. The design includes gardens, groves, play spaces and water features, planted with herbs, olive trees and other species typical of Northern California.

Institute officials expect construction to break ground in 2028 and the campus to open to the public in 2030.

Why the family calls it a milestone

Llisa Demetrios, a granddaughter of Charles and Ray Eames and a co-founder of the Institute, framed the project as a continuation of her family's legacy. 'For my grandparents, design was always grounded in curiosity and intention — looking closely, asking questions, embracing constraints, and finding beauty in the practical and the functional. The Museum carries that spirit forward,' she said in a statement.

She added: 'I hope our Museum campus feels vibrant with that same sense of potential and that people leave feeling inspired not just by what they've seen, but by what they might make or discover themselves.'

The choice of building fits the couple's philosophy. Charles Eames once said: 'The role of the designer is that of a very good, thoughtful host.' The Institute will soon host visitors on a campus built from an existing structure rather than a new one — reuse, arguably, as the most practical and functional design gesture available.

For Herzog & de Meuron, the commission adds another California adaptive reuse project to a portfolio already known for working with existing buildings. If the 2030 timeline holds, the Eames archive will get a permanent public home inside a roof that has sheltered publishers and shoe sellers alike.