Museum's new view
The multimillion-dollar north wing will expand and redefine the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. It opens in 2008.
By LENNIE BENNETT
Published April 17, 2006
Want a latte with that Monet?
In less than two years, visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts should be able to enjoy that amenity and more.
The much-discussed expansion of the museum has finally taken shape, shown in newly released drawings of the planned $16-million north wing by architect Yann Weymouth. The addition will feature a two-story, trapezoidal glass conservatory connecting the original Palladian-style building to a second structure with more galleries, an expanded gift shop and a cafe, opening up the museum to views of the downtown waterfront.
The design follows a movement among museums to fight their elitist image by offering visitors a more welcoming facade and a more entertaining experience once they enter. Along with larger gift shops, many museums have found that cafes and other dining facilities appeal to patrons and generate revenue.
"It's been a trend that probably started in the 1960s,'' says museum director John Schloder. "Museums used to be totally supported by small groups of wealthy patrons. That's changed. If we're going to sustain ourselves, we have to devise new models to make us vital to everyone's life."
So the Museum of Fine Arts will also have an interactive gallery stocked with computers to engage children and families.
"A really fun, hands-on gallery," Schloder says, "mostly to help people understand our permanent collection and to provide other ways of learning about art."
The wing, which will be named for longtime supporter Hazel Hough, adds 33,000 square feet to the museum, almost doubling its size. A new classroom, larger library and multipurpose rooms will occupy the second floor of the new space, along with a gallery dedicated to the museum's large collection of prints.
About 5,500 square feet on the first floor will be devoted to special exhibitions, freeing up all the current galleries for the permanent collection, about 90 percent of which now has to be stored.
"The ultimate goal," Schloder says, "is to get about 7,000 more square feet of gallery space, which will happen when we add the south wing down the road. But this new space is enough to show most of the traveling exhibitions that are out there."
Even though its purpose is to exhibit traveling shows, the wing, scheduled to open in 2008, will not feature a special exhibition for its debut.
"When you're opening a new wing," Schloder said, "you have to get the kinks out. We'll spotlight our permanent collection at first. Our first big show there will be a Durer exhibition from German collections in January 2009."
The museum, founded by Margaret Acheson Stuart and designed by architect John Volk, opened in 1965. An auditorium and sculpture garden were added in 1971, and a second floor was built onto the north portion of the building in 1989. Neither addition altered the stately facade; a concern with further expansion was that its integrity not be violated.
"One of the great things Yann did," says Schloder, "was adapt the new building to the site. Everything is stepped back so it wouldn't compete with that grand colonnade."
Another potential controversy was that further growth would encroach on green space that the museum owns but has always been considered in the public mind as part of North Straub Park.
"There was never a question of building on that land," says Schloder. "We always planned only to build on the parking lot. We needed some parking concessions from the city once we lost that space. We're close to an agreement about that now."
The deal would probably add angled spaces along Bayshore Drive reserved for museum volunteers.
Weymouth, senior vice president of the architectural firm Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum Inc., is also working on the expansions of the John and Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International Museum in Miami.
The total project cost is estimated at about $21-million and will include renovations to the existing building. Schloder says the museum will not close during construction, which he anticipates will begin next year. The museum has raised $14-million, but Schloder says he and the board of trustees won't break ground until they have $5-million more in hand.
The last big traveling show that will come to the museum before construction begins is a collection of 16th, 17th and 18th century paintings, once part of the Medici collection, from the Uffizi Gallery and Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy.
Lennie Bennett can be reached at 727 893-8293 or lennie@sptimes.com.