Philadelphia Museum of Art - Gallery Expansion

Gallery Expansion

Due to high attendance and overflowing collections, the Museum announced in October 2006 that Frank Gehry would design a building expansion. The 80,000-square-foot (7,400 m2) gallery will be built entirely underground behind the "Rocky Steps" and will not alter any of the museum's existing Greek revival facade. The construction is projected to last a decade and cost $500 million. It will increase the museum's available display space by sixty percent and house mostly contemporary sculpture, Asian art, and special exhibitions.

Uncertainty was cast on the plans by the 2008 death of Anne d'Harnoncourt, but new director Timothy Rub, who had initiated a 350-million dollar expansion at the Cleveland Museum of Art, will be carrying out the plans as scheduled. In 2010, Gehry attended the groundbreaking for second phase of the expansion, due to be completed in 2012. In this phase a ground level entrance that had been replaced by a loading dock, will be reclaimed, and will lead to a 500-foot-long arcaded hallway. Construction of the main new galleries will start after the completion of the second phase. Gehry said "When it's done, people coming to this museum will have an experience that's as big as Bilbao. It won't be apparent from the outside, but it will knock their socks off inside."