MSV SILO FOLLY
WINCHESTER, VA

This silo is a remnant of an old working farm, which is now the site of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley. The main museum building, completed in 2005, was designed by Michael Graves. The main road to the museum was built to the side of the museum, as opposed to the axial approach as envisioned. In 2013 our firm designed a master plan for the museum. The master plan included a new entry road to the museum, axial to its front façade. This new approach made the abandoned, obsolete silo important as an entry sentinel and an important vestige of the land’s former agrarian life.

The abandoned silo was treated as a new art folly, an extension of the garden follies with the Museum’s formal gardens. The original roof dome was removed and replaced with a dome with an oculus, in order to drop natural light into the space. The exterior tension rods were removed and replaced, and two new doors were cut into the base. The interior was stripped of equipment and detritus and then plastered in white. A new concrete floor slab with integral, semi-circular seating was poured. The interior of the silo now houses a kinetic metal sculpture by artist Andrew White, engineer Brett Phillips, and Dr. Jack McAllister called “Silo Skyline.”