Lee Rosenbaum at CultureGrrl has a post on the selection of Williams and Tsien as architects for the expansion. She quotes Hood Director Michael Taylor:

What really drew me to their work was their additions to the Phoenix Art Museum, which I think are superb, and the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center. Seeing the latter blew me away, since I saw how they could transform the Hood Museum’s entrance, while the former gave me a sense of what our new galleries could look like.

Rosenbaum also filmed an interview with Taylor in front of Wilson Hall, and she presents the video in the post. A few interesting things he mentions: the building is likely to include a “light box” and the new entrance will contain lots of glass and lights and possibly a big “Hood Museum of Art” [sign]. Wilson also will include a visitor services area and possibly a café.

Taylor also says that the archway where the Hood and Wilson connect will be replaced with the museum learning center. He probably means the arched door opening in the hyphen, not the iconic trabeated concrete gateway of the Hood itself.

Images of past work by the firm show at least a few formal similarities with the Hood, including the use of glazed brick and concrete and the interest in long flat spans, sometimes uncomfortably long in the case of Williams and Tsien. The firm’s project seems unlikely to refer to Wilson’s arches.

Past projects that seem most likely to be echoed in the Hood expansion are visible in images from the firm’s site: Skirkanich Hall at UPenn (another, an exterior); the Phoenix Art Museum (another); the Mattin Student Center at Johns Hopkins; the American Folk Art Museum; and of course the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center (with its exterior entry).

The Hood will close about a year from now and reopen during the Spring of 2015.

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[Update 05.12.2013: Nine links to Flash content at TWBTA site removed.]

[Update 07.07.2012: Spelling correction and minor wording change made.]