The Mari and James A. Michener Gallery Building, conceived as the first of two buildings designed by Kallmann McKinnell & Word Architects, Inc., has been inaugurated and is open to the public. With an area of 124,000 square feet, it houses the museum¿s permanent collection as well as temporary exhibitions. It was built first in order to make the collection available as quickly as possible to academics and general visitors. The second building, the Edgar A. Smith Building, will be 56,000 square feet and house a museum store, a café, a classroom, an auditorium, and offices. It will open in 2007. Also conceived as part of the complex are a 145,000-square feet public plaza and garden, designed by landscape architect Peter Walter, that will connect the two buildings. The Michener Gallery Building will make room for the Blanton Museum of Art¿s growing collection, which already boasts over 17,000 works, including the renowned Suida-Manning collection of Renaissance and Baroque works, and the recently acquired engravings and prints from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Centuries from the Leo Steinberg collection. The design will allow the Blanton to present the collection from a range of different perspectives, suggesting links between works from different cultures and times, and in different media.
For more information, visit www.blantonmuseum.org