Go big or go home seems to be the motto in museums today. Since the dawn of the blockbuster exhibitions of the 1980s museums have been actively competing for your entertainment dollars. They know that they must enhance your viewing experience or suffer the consequences. They are also competing with each other for donations of art and money from today’s mega-rich. Expansions with new state-of-the-art facilities seem to be de rigueur for institutions wanting to attract both visitors and patronage. The art-viewing public is the beneficiary of this current logic. From Moscow, Russia to Miami, Florida, here are ten museum re-openings to have on your radar.
Date of re-opening: April 2013
Architect: Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz of Cruz y Ortiz were the project's head architects, along with restoration architect Van Hoogevest and designer Jean-Michel Wilmotte.
Budget: €375 million ($489 million)
The museum was fully reconstructed in line with the design of Pierre Cuypers, the original architect of the museum. Re-opened after a 10-year renovation, the museum now shows a bright and spacious entrance, a new Asian Pavilion and beautifully restored galleries in a perfect combination of 19th century and modern design.
Date of beginning of renovation: 2011
Date of re-opening: The project will be staged with some renovated galleries re-opening this year, but the project is not scheduled to be complete until 2019.
Architect: Following the untimely death of Rick Mather, founder of Rick Mather Architects (RMA), the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) has elected toconclude its contract with firm. A new architect will be announced this summer.
The planned expansion will add up to 175,000 square feet of new galleries, a new restaurant, roof garden, a new public program and an education space. The bigger gallery space will permit the museum to more effectively present its large collection of over 1.8 million works of art and will also increase visitor engagement. Due to the unexpected death of architect Rick Mather, Peabody Essex’s leaders acknowledge that the expansion, originally scheduled for completion in 2016, will probably not be finished until 2019.
Fort Worth, TX, United States
Date of beginning of construction: Summer 2010
Date of re-opening: November 27, 2013
Architect: Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Kendall/Heaton Associates
The highly anticipated new pavilion will face Louis Kahn's original building. The Construction has blocked the main entrance for a few months, but Renzo Piano's design completes Kahn's composition in a perfect way. Kahn's love for the garden and outdoors led to its revival between the two buildings to create a harmonic shape across the grounds. The new, highly energy efficient design of the pavilion with a green roof accessible to the public will use only half of the amount of energy required for the operation of the Kahn building.
Date of beginning of construction: January 2011
Date of re-opening: December 2013
Architect: Herzog & de Meuron
The museum will re-open as the Pérez Art Museum Miami in a new space in a stunning location on Biscayne Bay that has been provided by the City of Miami. The new PAMM will transform Museum Park into a cultural center of Miami, promote art education, build community cohesiveness through its new educational complex, and contribute to revitalization in the downtown area.
Gorky Park, Moscow, Russia
Date of beginning of construction: 2011
Date of re-opening: End of 2013/early 2014
Architect: Rem Koolhaas/OMA
Budget: The center has declined to discuss the project's budget or its funders
The museum’s former space – 20th century Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage – was handed back to the care of the Russian Jewish Community as it will be moving to its new location in Gorky Park. The new design includes new exhibition galleries on two levels, a creative center for children, a shop, café, auditorium and offices. The design preserves original soviet-era elements including a large mosaic and decorative tiles and bricks while incorporating a range of innovative architectural approaches.
Queens, NY, United States
Date of closure: April 2011
Date of re-opening: October 2013
Architect: Grimshaw Architects
The Queens Museum of Art is doubling its size with an expansion set to open in October, 2013. Galleries, artists' studios and event spaces will all fill the new space. Originally constructed for the 1939 World’s Fair, the structure of New York’s Queens Museum of Art has been undergoing its fourth and most ambitious renovation to date. Features include a 220 foot long glass façade with new entry on the Grand Central Parkway side and a newly landscaped outdoor space on the Flushing Meadows Corona Park side of the building.
Date of closure: September 2010
Date of re-opening: End of 2013
Architect: Jean-François Bodin (Bodin & Associés) and Stéphane Thouin, Chief Architect of Historic Monuments
Budget: €50 million ($64 million)
Originally scheduled to re-open this month, the museum announced it will remain closed for another summer, extending a nearly four-year wait. When it is finally finished, the museum’s exhibition space will triple in size, allowing expanded display of the museum’s 5,000 paintings, drawings, ceramics and photographs.
Date of beginning of construction: 2009
Date of completion: November 2013
Architect: The consortium of mp-Art Architects and SIAPLAN, headed by the architect Mihn Hyun Jun
Budget: 256.5 billion won ($33.07 billion)
The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, is opening a new branch that will include an exhibition hall, multi-purpose hall, library, conference room, theater, restaurant, and museum shop. The architecture for the museum was selected through idea proposals and architectural design competition back in 2010. The new museum aims to introduce diverse contemporary visual art practices and to enable the public to communicate with the international art world.
Baltimore, MD, United States
Date of re-opening: Staged openings between 2014-2015
Completed in November of 2012, it is worth a visit to see the newly renovated Contemporary Wing at the Baltimore Museum of Art. In the fall of 2014 the venerable institution will celebrate its 100th anniversary in a superb manner with the re-opening of the historic Merrick Entrance, the Dorothy McIlvain Scott American Wing, and the East Wing Entrance and Lobby. The construction will continue into 2015 with the Asian and African galleries and a new 5000 square-foot learning center scheduled for unveiling that spring.
Date of beginning of construction: March 2011
Date of re-opening: Fall 2013
Architect: Caruso St John
One of the most important re-openings of 2013 in the U.K. is of Tate Britain’s newly refurbished galleries, where for the first time the collection will be hanged in a chronological order. In October, the initial phase of renovations of the museum will be completed, giving the Millbank entrance and the Rotunda a face-lift, as well as the creation of new display space and learning studios. The ambitious, long- range, 20-year plan will continue with construction commencing again in 2014.
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