Houston MFA Expansion Moves Ahead - Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX, close to completion of new building - Brief Article

Art in America, Jan, 1999

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is nearing completion of its new building, which will finally cap a 15-year, $115-million expansion campaign. Designed by Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, the Audrey Jones Beck Building will more than double the MFAH's exhibition space, making it the sixth largest museum in the country (it previously ranked 30th). Construction is scheduled for completion in 1999.

The four-level structure--one level is below ground--will have a total of 192,447 square feet, 85,400 of which is gallery space. The exterior is covered with Indiana limestone, which complements other buildings on the MFAH campus. Among the building's distinguishing features are "rooftop lanterns," large glass skylight-towers that will provide natural light for the second-level galleries housing the European collection. James Turrell, known for his atmospheric light-and-space installations, has been commissioned to create a permanent light work for the tunnel that will connect the new building to the existing museum.

Named for a life trustee and donor of an important Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection, the new structure will house the museum's works from antiquity to 1920, and will provide permanent galleries for prints, drawings and photography collections that have only been selectively shown in the past. It will also accommodate large traveling exhibitions. The MFAH's original Beaux-Arts building will be reinstalled with the 20th-century, Oceanic, African, Asian and pre-Columbian art collections; the 1958 addition by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe will finally be freed up for the 20th-century art works for which it is best suited (and for which it was originally conceived).

A three-story parking garage, exhibition ticketing center and museum service facility are being constructed adjacent to the existing campus, which also includes a sculpture garden designed by Isamu Noguchi, the Glassell School of Art and an administration building.

The new building will open in March 2000 with an Irving Penn retrospective, a show of Impressionist portraits, and selections from the photography, print and drawing collections.