yea i worked for them at ingenuity, it was a really great use of space for that corner of downtown.  Its highly visible too

From the AP, 11/19/05:

 

 

PHOTO: The Cleveland Museum of Art's permanent collection is closed for construction, and the institution is working to stay in the public eye.  The Associated Press/Mark Duncan

 

Museum open, but art exhibits closed

The Associated Press

 

CLEVELAND - Construction barriers have put the best of the Cleveland Museum of Art off-limits to visitors for years, so the renowned institution is trying its hand at art posters in train stations and storefront classes.

 

The effort makes sense in terms of keeping the museum's name in the public eye, but it doesn't sit well with some fans who already miss art treasures spanning 6,000 years.

 

"I think it's ridiculous," said David Kovaluk, 19, of St. Louis, a student at the nearby Cleveland Institute of Art. He has seen the museum's only remaining open exhibit, a special crafts display, but wishes the highly regarded permanent exhibits were open on a rotating basis.

 

more at:  http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051119/NEWS01/511190386/1056/rss02

 

They have started clearing some trees and set up construction mobile home headquarters.  One of my favorite things about this expansion is that it will remove the surface lot that mars the corner of Wade Oval and East Blvd.  University Circle needs more green space at key intersections.  This project will help provide that.

 

You said it Wimwar!

 

I gotta say though, symmetry is a definite plus for this as well.

i have to agree with this article, as a cia student, it sucks to have to rely on slides to see artwork.  kinda glad im working at Spaces.  i think the contemporary galleries will see more interest from places like cia

Pit is deep and looks like column wiring is being put in place..other construction lingo ect so and so forth:

 

I have one big gripe with this story:

 

"He’ll move his family here during the summer and wait until then to answer the perennial Cleveland questions: East Side or West Side? Inner ring or outer suburb?"

 

Hey Steve, there's a little place called the CITY OF CLEVELAND in between those inner- and outer-ring suburbs. What is this, 1979? Sheesh. :bang:

some comments..

 

-Rub sounds like a good guy. Hopefully he'll be a great leader.

-I get a little sick of Litt's redundant commentary about Cleveland being a shrinking city.  Yes the city is losing people, but the region is steady and its the region that supports the museum.  Overall, its an inaccurate reminder that feeds the area's inferiority complex.

 

Secondly, I love the overall design for the museum. However, I am a little nervous about the indoor plaza.  I hope that it is sparingly used during the warm weather months because we don't need to hide our energy. I also believe that there is a fancy restaurant that will go inside the museum.  While I like the idea of an upscale restaurant near Wade Oval, I would rather see it front on a street (maybe as a first floor tenant to a new residential building at the CIA site). 

 

Construction: The cement stairway and elevator towers can easily be seen around the Circle.  They also painted the construction fences and lined them with slogans and pictures of the expansion designs.  It is amazing that this project will actually take so long to complete...

I have one big gripe with this story:

 

"Hell move his family here during the summer and wait until then to answer the perennial Cleveland questions: East Side or West Side? Inner ring or outer suburb?"

 

Hey Steve, there's a little place called the CITY OF CLEVELAND in between those inner- and outer-ring suburbs. What is this, 1979? Sheesh. :bang:

 

I absolutely agree. Litt, what the hell are you doing??  What's next?? KJP supporting highway expansion in Lorain County?? Blinker12's new-found love for the wrecking ball??  Douglass Hagan and his Wilson-Phillips marathon??

Why is this taking so long to complete?

Listen, I played some B.J. Thomas this week, so you never know what I'm going to come up with on a Monday morning!

 

As for why the museum will take so long...well, I guess it takes a while to spend $260 million!  Have you seen the plans?  Have you visited the site?  Do you know how complicated it is to relocate and store priceless works of art during the process? 

 

I'm interested to see how the phased openings will go.  We're supposed to have exhibits as early as this summer!

in the photos it doesnt seem that much of a big project as far as them having to close galleries and such.  but visiting the site is another story.  i mean it covers such a vast area, its a bit disorienting seeing at how there used to be a parking lot where they're building up.

You also have to consider that they are building underground parking which won't show up too well on those pretty models that they give us.

^Did the underground parking survive the revisions to the plans?  I had thought they were instead going to rely on the existing deck (maybe expanded) but hide it behind a berm.

 

I don't think the timeline is so surprising for the reasons given above by others- this is a complicated, multi-stepped demo/construction project with all sorts of interior renovation, construction and installation.

 

I am totally thrilled that the additions will fill the surface parking lot and push some building mass towards the street without looming over it.  IMO, Wade Oval will benefit from the better definition of its edge.  This city has too much interstitial green space.

^good use of "interstitial." If UrbanOhio is going to zap our productivity, at least our employers will be compensated with higher worker vocabulary levels.

Straphanger,

 

From everything that I have heard, the surface parking on East Blvd is no more.  I remember reading a year or two ago that they would hide it behind a berm.  Between asking around and seeing semi-vague construction drawings, I don't think the surface parking will re-appear. 

If UrbanOhio is going to zap our productivity, at least our employers will be compensated with higher worker vocabulary levels.

 

This forum is seriously going to get me canned.

 

Just for clarification, I'm not worried about the surface lot reappearing (mercifully), I actually meant that I had thought parking was going to pushed towards the existing structure that is west of the museum, embedded in the hillside sloping towards the f'ed up traffic circle, though it would all be screened by a planted berm.

 

I am so happy to see that surfact lot go.  You mentioned on one of these forums that some of the other surface lots might be disappearing too sometime soon which I look forward to!

..embedded in the hillside sloping towards the f'ed up traffic circle

 

The f'ed up traffic circle may be leaving us as well in the next few years.

^that would be wonderful too... altho all it needs is to just not make every car inside the circle have to yield to everything on the outside (isnt it supposed to be the otherway around?)

 

 

The f'ed up traffic circle may be leaving us as well in the next few years.

 

I vote for more Roundabouts (modern traffic circles)... but that's a different thread

Kent State is moving its entire graduate program in architecture to Cleveland in the near future. It will join the Urban Design Center, which is already here. See: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=8150.0

 

I agree, it is desperately needed.

Holdup with grant delays art museum’s garage

 

Plain Dealer Entertainment Blog

By Steven Litt

June 22, 2006

5:36 p.m.

 

The Cleveland Museum of Art has delayed an addition to its parking garage — an important part of a larger, $258 million expansion and renovation — because of a holdup with a $7.5 million federal grant.

 

The delay could increase the cost of the garage expansion because the museum had to reject construction bids this month and will have to seek new ones, said Janet Ashe, the museum’s treasurer and deputy director for administration...

These are from last week.  MayDay posted similar ones on some other thread (poo poo to you!).

 

The rear building at CIM:

The front:

 

CMA, east wing expansion:

 

 

 

By the way, I've been looking at the renderings recently and am noticing that the side of this building will be somewhere between the stripes of the 1971 Breuer addition and the stripeless original building.  Why?  I don't really know.  I was hoping for more glass & steel...

 

Also, does anyone know if they will be reopening the original main entrance on the front of the building as part of this renovation and expansion?  I find it particularly offensive that the "main" entrance is in the rear, by the parking garages!  Now, if part of this expansion included a very bold, progressive move towards creating a better entrance fronting Wade Oval, then I might be more accepting of using the back door as the front door.  I don't think that's part of the plan, though...

I think that the new main entrance will be on East Blvd. The old new main entrance (Breuer) will be used for large groups (schools, etc).

 

I like the new facade.  I think its pretty clever. Breuer used a small amount of white stone striping in his expansion that came from the same quarry as the 1916 building.  The new edition progressively uses more white stone until it meets up with the 1916 building.

^Actually, I think I might be wrong about the East Blvd entrance. I can't find anything on the images that suggest such an entrance.

From what I could tell from looking at a few of the images on the CMA website it appears that the entrance will be shifted to East Boulevard.  I also recall hearing that East Boulevard would be the new entrance, but I can't find anything that says that.  Here is a link to the Museum website with a strip of photos (the one from East Boulevard showed a number of pedestrians walking to what appeared to be an elevated plaza):

 

http://www.clemusart.com/educef/cmabuilds/html/envision.html

I like the new facade.  I think its pretty clever. Breuer used a small amount of white stone striping in his expansion that came from the same quarry as the 1916 building.  The new edition progressively uses more white stone until it meets up with the 1916 building.

 

I get it...I just don't like it!

I'm seeing only one reference to an "entry" and one lobby on the floor plan diagram...and it's in the rear, next to the driveway.  This is a huge problem for UC institutions (poorly designed entry areas that pay very little mind to their surroundings) and I would hope that a $200 million renovation could do better to address it!

So in Novemember, I sent the Cleveland Museum of Art an email saying I was disappointed not to see any kind of information or visuals for the building project in the museum even though they have a section on their website.

 

Yesterday I picked up a copy of CMA's January magazine in the library on campus, and apparently next month they are going to open an exhibition on its major building project. The article was pretty lengthy, but basicly it will be an interactive exhibit that details the planning process, timeline of construction, and final project. I checked the website, but I couldn't find any info about this exhibit.

Displaying fine art of leadership

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Steven Litt

Plain Dealer Art Critic

 

Timothy Rub, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, looked remarkably unrumpled for a guy who had spent half the previous night marooned at the Pittsburgh airport.

 

Wearing a dark business suit and a hard hat on a recent afternoon, he bounded up a staircase two steps at a time in the museum's half-finished east wing, part of a $258 million expansion and renovation that will keep most of the museum closed for another year...

 

 

Work of art

Exhibits, events keep Cleveland, Akron art museum memberships from taking big hits during construction

 

By SHANNON MORTLAND

 

6:00 am, May 21, 2007

 

Dirt is still being moved and the buildings are far from finished in the Cleveland Museum of Art’s $258 million renovation and expansion project, but the construction isn’t keeping people away from the famed University Circle institution.

 

As of late last week, the art museum had more than 22,800 members and it expects to hit 23,000 this week, said Mary Wheelock, associate director for membership at the museum.

 

That’s quite a feat given that the museum was completely closed for six months last year and its permanent collections will not begin to be put on view again until summer 2008.

 

“We expected to lose half our membership, but we only lost about (25%)” during the closing, Ms. Wheelock said.

 

Prior to the museum’s closing last year, membership was about 20,000 and dropped to 15,000 last July. But since that low point, membership rapidly has been on the upswing, Ms. Wheelock said.

 

Ms. Wheelock attributes the increase to the curious nature of local residents wondering what’s happening with all the cranes and construction workers behind the wooden barriers outside the museum. Their curiosity — and a hunger for art — brought some members back sooner than expected, she said.

 

Of course, the popularity of two large, traveling art exhibits can’t be denied, Ms. Wheelock said. The “Barcelona & Modernity: Picasso, Gaudi, Miro, Dali” exhibit, which ran from Oct. 15, 2006, to Jan. 7, 2007, averaged more than 6,000 visitors a week.

 

The “Monet in Normandy” exhibit, which began Feb. 18 and will end May 28, has averaged nearly 8,200 visitors a week. That show was extended by eight days to accommodate more visitors, she said.

 

Both shows were more successful than the museum imagined and many people became members so they could gain free admission to such exhibits, Ms. Wheelock said.

 

“We had projected we would hit 20,000 members after Monet. We hit that the first week that Monet opened,” Ms. Wheelock said.

 

 

A surge in Akron

 

The Akron Art Museum also has seen continued interest from members even though it has been closed since May 2004 for a $34 million renovation and expansion project that’s in its final stages, said Joan Lauck, director of development for the Akron Art Museum.

 

Ms. Lauck said the much smaller museum, which is adding 64,000 square feet of space and will re-open July 17, lost only about 200 of its 1,200 members during the closing.

 

Though the museum didn’t host any large, traveling exhibits, Ms. Lauck said it held a series of events, such as wine tastings, throughout the community that enabled members to stay connected to the museum and to feel like they were getting their money’s worth. Some of the museum’s own collections also have been on display at various locations in and around Akron, she said.

 

The Akron Art Museum this week will launch a membership drive that will include sending direct mail to about 6,000 households in the Akron area and a multimedia advertising campaign. Ms. Lauck said she expects ads to appear in the Akron Beacon Journal and other local publications, as well as on local radio stations.

 

After the re-opening, Ms. Lauck expects annual attendance at the museum to range from 100,000 to 150,000, about double the average annual attendance of between 55,000 and 70,000 in years past.

 

 

Building relationships

 

As the Akron Art Museum prepares to welcome the public again, the Cleveland Museum of Art is gearing up to start the second phase of its six-year project, which is scheduled for completion in 2011, museum director Timothy Rub said.

 

The first phase included renovating the original 1916 building, expanding the museum addition built in 1971 and constructing a new wing on East Boulevard. Plans for the second phase, scheduled to begin next year, include construction of a basement between the original building and the 1971 addition, a new building on the west side of the museum, and an atrium that would serve as the centerpiece of the completed project and as a sort of community gathering space.

 

Mr. Rub said additions built in 1958 and 1983 had outlived their usefulness and will be demolished.

 

“This allows us to reveal the north side of the 1916 building for the first time in 50 years,” Mr. Rub said.

 

The Cleveland Museum of Art has raised more than $150 million for the first phase of the project and later this year will begin fundraising efforts for another $100 million to foot the bill for the construction project’s second phase, Mr. Rub said.

 

Once construction is finished, visitors will be able to experience the museum’s 42,000 pieces of art in more of a chronological and geographic order, Mr. Rub said. In the past, he said the museum determined how to display its collections based on the gallery space available at the time.

Thanks blinker

speaking of the Art Museum:

 

I couldn't get close to the main entrance (fence), but i take it The Thinker has temporarily been moved? Its not like they have to worry about it being damaged...

A brief clip from cleveland.com's multimedia division about the Cleveland Museum of Art. I didn't know they were restoring some of the original gallery spaces along with the expansion:

 

http://www.cleveland.com/news/pdvideo/flash/index.ssf?081607_artmuseum_video

Fabulous!!!  Great find MayDay!! :clap:

A brief clip from cleveland.com's multimedia division about the Cleveland Museum of Art. I didn't know they were restoring some of the original gallery spaces along with the expansion:

 

http://www.cleveland.com/news/pdvideo/flash/index.ssf?081607_artmuseum_video

 

Not so much going on at the Museum right now, but there is a room describing the entire renovation/expansion in pretty good detail- it's in the entryway to the special exhibition gallery on the left when you walk in the main Breuer door.  The renovation of the 1916 bldg is one of the major components of the whole project, which is very cool.

Taking a hardhat tour of the Cleveland Museum of Art's expansion project

 

August 25, 2007 08:00AM

 

Steven Litt

Plain Dealer Architecture Critic

 

"Totally cool" is not the kind of phrase one expects to hear from an art museum director, but Timothy Rub can't help himself.

 

Link to video tour at cleveland.com:

http://www.cleveland.com/news/pdvideo/flash/index.ssf?081607_artmuseum_video

This is so very exciting!

Great to hear that Litt is so taken by this (either that or he's taken with Rub's enthusiasm).

Double-skin facade!!!  :clap: Is this the first one in Cleveland?  Granted it's not a huge installation but it will be interesting to see how it fares in our dramatic climate.  I'd like to see more people experiment with those over here.   

AIA Cleveland / Cleveland Museum of Art Hard Hat Tour

Wednesday, October 24th

 

5:30pm  Registration & Refreshments

6:00pm  Timothy Rub will discuss the project followed by tours of the construction site.

 

$15 per person

 

Hard Hats, safety glasses, long sleeves & boots are required to participate.  This will be strictly enforced.

 

RSVP to the chapter office by Monday, October 22 required

216.575.1242

We need an accurate count by Monday. Names will be provided to the museum for security.

 

 

$15!?!?!!  That's absurd

Hardly - stop being cheap :roll:

mr rub is an interesting speaker, and very engaging.  not to mention, these tours have been getting rave reviews around the museum.  and you get to wear a hat!   

gotta raise those funds!  or does the money go to AIA?  Either way...

Cleveland Museum of Art OKs second phase of expansion, says it's raised over $200 million for construction

 

by Steven Litt/Plain Dealer Art Critic

Monday June 16, 2008, 8:45 PM

Lisa DeJong/The Plain Dealer

 

The old Indoor Garden Court in the Cleveland Museum of Art's 1916 building has been renovated to become a light-filled Baroque paintings gallery.

 

http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2008/06/cleveland_museum_of_art_oks_se.html

the new galleries look wonderful.  our old friends are back on the walls, and even a few things we haven't seen before are up.  I hope everyone comes for a visit.  june 29th cannot come soon enough!  I am really looking forward to the 1916 building entrance opening seasonally.  the sightlines coming through those doors are amazing.  and  unlike the museum projects I have visited recently in chicago and elsewhere, there will be windows into the construction zone, so visitors can check out the progress.  yay, museum.

 

the art is back!

I can't wait to get in there.

"World-class" gets thrown around way too casually when referring to various projects. But I think this one actually qualifies for that description.

I think it's amazing that they're going to end up privately raising more $ than it cost to build Cleveland Browns Stadium.  That's got to be a testament to just how well-known and valued the Art Museum really is.

^amen to that!

 

I love the new CMA bus wraps that advertise the return of the museum...