Ruby City is the vision of the late artist, collector and philanthropist Linda Pace. Using a sketch of a “ruby city” that came to her in a dream, she commissioned Adjaye to design a home for the Linda Pace Foundation – an organisation she set up in 2003 to give public access to her collection of over 800 paintings, drawings, installations and works of video art. 

The building's form is an abstraction of the Spanish colonial architecture built across southern Texas during the 16th-19th centuries to spread the Catholic faith. It's red concrete exterior – polished smooth to the touch at ground level and coarse above – echoes the warm hue of the adobe, brick and sandstone typically used to construct mission churches. 

Chamfers where the building meets the ground, indicate the positioning of a staircase leading to the first-floor galleries, and extend a welcoming gesture to a small sculpture garden. 

The angled cuts also mirror wedge-shaped outcrops on the roof used to top-light the galleries – a nod to the domed skylights, bell towers and moulded ornamentation of the architecture it takes for reference. Few visible windows lend the building a defensive appearance in keeping with the style. A band of glazing positioned by the ground-floor offices gives staff views directly in the sculpture park at the back of the site, where art pieces are stationed around the edge of an elliptical    
path embraced by red concrete walls screening a car park. Above, two panoramic windows face out over adjacent San Pedro Park. 

Ruby City will open to the public this October.