![]() ![]() It will bring the American art collection, which is in several places now, into a "single presentation" on the second floor, Keegan says. The rethinking of the galleries will do several things. The museum is also reclaiming existing space for exhibiting art for an overall growth of 21,000 square feet for art. It has been plagued for several years with leaks. The overall project also includes major renovations of existing space, which will bring galleries in the War Memorial complex that the museum occupies up to art-world standards for environmental controls. "It's this nice interactive moment for the building," he said. The southeast corner of the new building will also cantilever out over the walking path on the lakefront, which is Keegan's favorite moment, he said. The new lakeside entrance will give visitors a second and much closer point of entry - and places to sit by the lake as well. Since the Calatrava opened, the old entrance has become an unused and deadened space, with cracking concrete and weeds outside.Īs it stands now, museum visitors have to walk the length of about four football fields to reach the museum's galleries from the largest parking lot on the north side. The museum's new building will also provide a new entrance where the museum's front door once was before the opening of the Santiago Calatrava-designed addition in 2001. "That was the moment of collective sea change." ![]() "When we really realized that that was going to be an open 8,000-square-foot space, that was the moment at which we realized there are some other possibilities here," he said. Keegan said he and his team started out thinking of the new building "as the sunglasses" for the 1972 David Kahler addition. "I think it's the right solution at the right time." "I love it," said Dan Keegan, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, who said that the idea for making the changes surfaced when museum officials started looking at scale models and realized how much they could accomplish with the extra space. The shift in design buys the museum about 8,000 square feet of additional gallery space and expands the footprint by about 1,000 square feet. Initially conceived of as a soaring atrium with a cafe, seating areas and a transparent ceramic silkscreen on the exterior, the new plan calls for more functional exhibition space for art, including a 5,000-square-foot gallery for feature exhibitions and a dramatic sculpture gallery that will be visible to passers-by. The new design includes both solid and glassy massing on the exterior, two floors inside (rather than one) and cantilevered areas outside. The height and footprint of the new design are similar to the earlier MAM proposal in 2012, but the look and feel of the new addition is quite changed. ![]() The museum has raised about $13 million toward its $15 million goal, Scharfberg said. Major repairs and renovations have been put off while the museum and War Memorial Corp. The museum has been able to move forward with its plans after reaching a long-term agreement over the operation and public support for the War Memorial Center and Milwaukee Art Museum, which received unanimous backing from the Milwaukee County board in July. The new building, designed by Milwaukee architect Jim Shields, of HGA Architects and Engineers, will be 17,000 square feet and is part of a larger $15 million project to renovate and reorganize the museum's permanent collection galleries,said Vicki Scharfberg, the museum's communications director. The Milwaukee Art Museum released a new design for a previously proposed addition that would give the museum an entrance on a prime, if sorely neglected, spot of lakefront. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |