American artist Ellsworth Kelly, before he passed away in 2015, gifted the Blanton Museum of Art a building concept that had been sitting in his studio since the mid-1980s. The work is titled Austin, and it was Kelly’s only foray into the architecture world. The concept’s construction work was completed recently, and it is now part of the museum’s permanent collection inside the campus at the University of Texas in Austin.

The freestanding stone building has taken up 2,715 square feet of space. Multiple coloured glass windows are arranged differently on three façades. Kelly spent a few years in France in the 1940s and 1950s, and the buildings and monuments in Europe probably had some influence on Austin, as the stone building offers a sense of serenity.

Celebrating the completion of Austin, the Blanton Museum of Art is also holding the “Form into Spirit: Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin” exhibition running until 29 April.