The Wall Street Journal recently reviewed the Seattle Art Museum expansion designed by architect Brad Cloepfil, whose Allied Works Architecture has been selected to build the new Clyfford Still Museum adjacent to the DAM.  (The Seattle Art Museum: A Work in Progress, July 18th, 2007)

From the article:

Architecturally distinct, but lacking much distinction, the new 16-story museum building, with its vertically ribbed panels of stainless steel and glass, was designed by an up-and-coming architect, Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture, who is also in the midst of controversially recladding and reconfiguring the iconic Edward Durrell Stone building at 2 Columbus Circle in New York, soon to house the Museum of Arts & Design.

Dwarfed by WaMu's new headquarters, Mr. Cloepfil's museum addition reads as an appendage to the 42-story corporate tower directly behind it. The museum currently occupies only four of its building's 16 floors, with an option to expand, starting 10 years from now, to some or all of the eight floors above it (now being leased by WaMu). The bank will always occupy the top four floors of the Cloepfil building.

From the outside, SAM's addition bears no family resemblance to its younger sibling, the eccentric, postmodern Venturi building, sheathed in sand-colored limestone. There's an abrupt, unmediated divide between the new well-behaved façade and the more fanciful older one, with no conciliatory gesture of acknowledgement, let alone kinship.

Fortunately, that changes once you enter the museum, where the flow between the two buildings is almost seamless. Mr. Cloepfil's airy, pleasingly proportioned galleries are spaciously installed by the curators, giving the artworks ample room to breathe. The Venturi interior has been largely redesigned but retains some of its original detailing and flooring, so there remains a subtle sense of whether you are in the new or the old wing.