Baltimore Museum of Art leaders unveiled plans on Tuesday to complete a $24 million renovation in time for the institution's 100th anniversary in 2014, a three-year project that will require some galleries to be closed in phases starting early next year.
The museum's director, Doreen Bolger, and its fundraising campaign co-chair, Sandra Levi Gerstung, announced that the museum has raised more than half the funds needed for the project, including a commitment of $10 million over four years from the state of Maryland and a $1.25 million bond issue from the city of Baltimore. City voters will be asked to approve another $1.2 million loan for the renovations on the ballot in November.
At their annual meeting, trustees also announced that Baltimore attorney Frederick Koontz has agreed to be the museum's vice chair and treasurer, putting him in line eventually to succeed Stiles Tuttle Colwill as the museum's chairman. They also said the museum has raised more than $50 million out of the $65 million goal set in 2008 in its "In a New Light" campaign, including a $750,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Capital contributions to that campaign will fund the renovations.
"The culmination of our 'In a New Light' campaign will be a physical transformation that makes the museum more dynamic, welcoming and inspiring," Bolger said during the annual meeting. When renovations are complete, she said, "the BMA will be a cultural magnet for our region, a great civic presence and a leading center for scholarship."
The renovation project grows out of a master plan that Ayers Saint Gross completed in 2005 to guide expansion and modernization of spaces throughout the museum at 10 Art Museum Drive. It will be the first major renovation of museum space since its Cone Wing was renovated in 2001 and its European Art galleries were renovated in 2003. A final architect will be selected this fall, and the museum is requiring that the selected firm have its headquarters in Maryland.
The proposed work includes renovating galleries for three major art collections — Contemporary, American and African — as well as improving visitor amenities and elements of the building's infrastructure. Proposed new features include a gallery to highlight works the museum owns by Louis Comfort Tiffany, one of America's best-known glass artists; a gallery to celebrate works by Maryland artists; and a "black box" space in the west wing to present works of new media and "technology based" art.
Nine galleries on the second floor of the Dorothy McIlvain Scott Wing will be renovated to present fine and decorative arts. The lobby of the 1982 east wing will be revamped to provide an updated museum shop and other improvements. Proposed changes to the building's infrastructure include two new roofs, an improved climate control system for the museum's 90,000 works of art, and a 4,000-square-foot addition above the Thalheimer galleries.
The construction period will begin in 2011 and is expected to be completed in 2014. Directors say the museum will remain open and in operation while work is under way.
The construction schedule calls for the museum's contemporary galleries to close in February of 2011 and reopen in 2012, for galleries in the Scott wing to close in 2012 and reopen in 2013, and for the African collection to go "off view" in 2013 and reopen in 2014.
Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the museum moved in 1929 to its current location, where the original building was designed by the noted neoclassical architect John Russell Pope. The museum has expanded nine times as its collection has grown, including additions to the east and west sides of the Pope building and a three-acre sculpture garden.
Another goal of the 2005 master plan was to reopen the "front door" of the 1929 Pope building, which was closed when the east wing opened in the 1980s largely because it is inaccessible to people in wheelchairs. Museum directors said reopening the museum's historic "Merrick Entrance" was the next priority for capital renovation and fundraising.
"In a New Light" is the most ambitious philanthropic campaign in the museum's history. Recognizing the need for long-term financial stability, trustees aimed to raise endowment funds before renovation funds and have $28.6 million, or 95 percent, of their $30 million endowment goal. This includes the two largest individual gifts in the museum's history, $10 million from Dorothy McIlvain Scott to endow operations and programs for the American Wing, and $5 million from an anonymous donor to endow the position of the museum's director.
ed.gunts@baltsun.com