After a $14 million project that nearly doubled its gallery space, a renewed
Weisman Art Museum on the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus has opened its doors.
Erin Lauderman, a spokesperson for the
Frank Gehry-designed museum, says the Weisman added another 8,100 square feet, which it did without “any more ground to build on.”
In a
Finance and Commerce story, Brett Dunlap, a project manager with JE Dunn of Kansas City, Mo., the project's general contractor, says that it "required the galleries to be built atop and cantilevered over huge concrete columns."
A fifth gallery space, which has been dubbed the Target Studio for Creative Collaboration, “had to push the walking bridge out,” according to Lauderman.
There’s also a new canopy and bridge skirt. More of the signature metal of the façade was used on one side of the building, while another part of the exterior is mainly brick. “It completed the building inside and out,” she says. “Now you walk in a loop inside.”
Another challenge was to fit the work in with the plans for the
Central Corridor Light Rail Transit line, which will span the Washington Avenue Bridge. “It’s a limiting site but it’s a fantastic location,” Lauderman says.
All in all, the museum has the same feel as it did before, although the recently installed skylights create an openness that literally sheds new light on the works. “That makes every space look different,” she says.
The Weisman now has more room to showcase its 20,000-piece permanent collection, which includes ceramics, American art, and works on paper. The fifth gallery area is geared to interdisciplinary collaboration.
“Now [the museum] is a better resource,” she says. “You can come back and see the same piece multiple times.”
Admission to the museum is still free and, says Lauderman, “it doesn’t take long to get through. We have a nice, thoughtful collection."
Source: Erin Lauderman, Weisman Art Museum
Writer: Anna Pratt