Cleveland Museum of Art opens atrium Tuesday and closes basement Art Detour

Posted August 27, 2012 in Articles

Author: Steven Litt

The long detour through the basement to galleries at the Cleveland Museum of Art is finally over.


When the museum opens at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, it will also quietly open its new central atrium, a vast, skylighted space that will function as the heart of the institution and as one of the largest public rooms in the city.

It’s a big turning point in the museum’s eight-year, $350 million expansion and renovation, scheduled for completion in late 2013.

For the first time since the project began in 2005, visitors will be able to walk from the North Lobby, the principal, year-round entry, into the soaring, light-washed atrium.

From there, visitors can orient themselves to lower-level special-exhibition galleries in the museum’s East Wing, which opened in 2008, plus the renovated permanent-collection galleries in the 1916 building and new galleries on the second level of the East Wing, which followed in 2009.

By late 2013, galleries in the new West Wing, housing Asian art, will also open.

Original Article: http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2012/08/cleveland_museum_of_art_opens.html