Cleveland Museum of Art opens its new East Wing

Designed by Rafael Viñoly, galleries show post-war work not on view since 2005

By Jason Edward Kaufman | Web only
Published online 24 Jun 09 (Museums)

Interior of the East Wing with the 1916 building in the background. Courtesy Rafael Vinoly Architects (c)Brad Feinknopf 2009

new york. The Cleveland Museum of Art has opened a new wing as part of its multi-phase $335m renovation and expansion. The East Wing, which opened on 27 June and is designed by New York architect Rafael Viñoly, contains post-war art and photography that have been off view since 2005. The museum’s European art from the 17th to mid 19th centuries and pre-modern American art were reinstalled in the refurbished 1916 Beaux Arts building last summer. Those galleries now flow into the second floor of the new building to carry the chronicle forward into the modern and contemporary periods.

The 22 new galleries showcase impressionism, post-impressionism, European avant-garde and American modernism. The new wing is the first of three that will be completed by 2013 as part of the capital project, undertaken in 2001, that will add 200,000 sq. ft and for the first time enable the museum to install its encyclopaedic permanent collection in a continuous chronology.

Timothy Rub, who became director in 2006, says the museum undertook the project for several reasons: “It has been more than half a century since the museum provided new gallery space to accommodate the growth of its collection. Space for storage of the collection and work areas for conservators, registrars, design and installation staff had become woefully inadequate considering the growth of the staff over the past two decades. Finally, several of the museum’s existing buildings were in need of a comprehensive renovation.”

The overall cost has risen from the initial estimate of $258m—which Mr Rub says was unrealistic—to $335m. The museum has raised $212m, more than half from trustees, with 40 donations of $1m or more and three exceeding $20m. The first phase ($170m) was financed in part through a $90m tax-exempt bond issue, but financing for the second phase (estimated at $165m) remains uncertain owing to turmoil in the credit markets. Mr Rub says that the board decided to continue to fund the project with cash on hand until credit can be secured.

But like most US museums, Cleveland’s financial wellbeing has been damaged by the recession. The endowment has declined from $830m in 2007 to around $560m at the end of May. (Around half is restricted for acquisitions with the balance available for operations.) The loss of endowment revenues and fall-off in other contributions made it necessary to cut operating expenses for the fiscal year that ended 30 June from $32m to $30.6m. Mr Rub says the increased costs of operating a new and much larger facility will result in further cuts over the next several years.