The Portland Art Museum is planning an expansion that will unify its campus by connecting the Museum’s freestanding buildings.
The expansion will feature a new glass-walled building, to be named the Rothko Pavilion, in recognition of the artist’s legacy in Portland—his home as a youth after immigrating from Latvia—and the Museum, where he took art classes as a teenager and where he received his first solo exhibition.
The expansion project will seamlessly link the Museum to the surrounding Cultural District with a new central entrance flanked by greenery and sculpture that opens onto the South Park Blocks. The project will make the Museum more publicly accessible, while knitting the campus together with the surrounding neighborhood and reducing the Museum’s carbon footprint. Groundbreaking is scheduled to take place in 2018, with an expected completion date for the project in late 2020 or early 2021. The Museum has launched the public phase of a $75-million capital and endowment campaign to fund the project.
Designed by Chicago-based Vinci Hamp Architects, the three-story Rothko Pavilion will add roughly 30,000 square feet of space to the Museum and will be anchored by a glass-walled stair tower that will connect the Pavilion to the Museum’s Main Building. In addition to the Community Commons, the Pavilion will feature 9,840 square feet of new gallery space, including space for contemporary and media art, as well as a new Education and Design Lab, and new space for the Museum’s library. The project will also create a third-floor sculpture garden that will provide visitors the chance to step outside and enjoy the Museum’s natural surroundings; the rooftop deck will also serve as a space for public programming and events.
Architect Vinci Hamp’s previous work includes projects for the Art Institute of Chicago, the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and the Neue Galerie in New York, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Oriental Institute, Smart Museum of Art, and The Arts Club in Chicago, among others. Also known for their historic preservation work, Vinci Hamp has completed award-winning projects that include the Illinois State Capitol, Chicago Tribune Tower, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio.
The Portland Art Museum has mounted exhibitions by a diverse roster of artists since the time of its founding. In 1913, the Museum brought works from the famous New York Armory Show to Portland, helping to introduce West Coast audiences to Modernism. In 1933 the Museum organized the first solo exhibition of works by the 29-year-old artist Marcus Rothkowitz, later to be known as Mark Rothko.
The oldest art museum in the Pacific Northwest, the Portland Art Museum was founded in late 1892 when seven leaders from Portland’s business and cultural institutions created the Portland Art Association. The Museum’s current home opened to the public in 1932, in the downtown area known as South Park Blocks. The building was designed by noted Portland architect Pietro Belluschi, and further expanded and renovated in 1994, when the adjacent Masonic temple was incorporated.
Contact:
Brian Ferriso
Marilyn H. and Dr. Robert B. Pamplin Jr. Director and Chief Curator
Portland Art Museum
1219 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR 97205
USA
+1 503 226 2811
Vinci Hamp Architects
1147 West Ohio Street, 6th Floor
Chicago, Illinois 60642
+1 312 733 7744
Image: Portland Art Museum
