New Wing will allow the museum’s full collection of design, textiles, ceramics and fine art to be displayed and accessed, underscoring the pedagogical mission of Cranbrook by bringing the collection to life for a new generation of artists, students, and visitors.
On November 11, 2011, Cranbrook Art Museum will reopen after a two-year construction project that encompassed both a complete renovation of its landmark 1942 Eliel Saarinen-designed building and a new 20,000-square-foot Collections Wing. While the restored galleries (including a new state-of-the-art climate control system and other sophisticated museum technologies) will continue to provide the Art Museum with a venue for innovative and thought-provoking exhibitions, the new Collections Wing will house and make accessible the Museum’s celebrated permanent collection of nearly 6,000 works of art, architecture, and design from the Arts and Crafts Movement to the present. Cranbrook Educational Community’s extensive Archives and Cultural Properties collections will also move to the facility, creating a dynamic new center for exhibition, research, and educational programming.
Cranbrook Art Museum
Designed originally by Eliel and Eero Saarinen (with later buildings by Steven Holl, Lake/Flato, Rafael Moneo, Peter Rose, and Tod Williams and Billie Tsien), Cranbrook is a National Historic Landmark, located on 320 acres of rolling, wooded landscape approximately 18 miles northwest of downtown Detroit. And, on a campus famous for its architecture, Cranbrook Art Museum is considered one of Eliel Saarinen’s masterpieces.
The complete renovation and expansion accomplishes two things, according to Museum Director Wittkopp. “On a fundamental level, we are making a commitment to the infrastructure of the museum by raising Saarinen’s masterwork to the standards of 21st-century museum practice, in terms of mechanical systems, lighting, communications, and other technology,” he says. “But Cranbrook is, ultimately, a community where art and life are inextricably linked, and we believe that a museum and its collections are important only if they can continue to inspire new generations of artists.” To that end, and in keeping with Cranbrook’s tradition as a center of educational innovation, the new Collections Wing creates a model that is unprecedented: a museum whose collections in their entirety are visible and accessible. “The Academy has always seen the collection as a critical component of our pedagogy,” explains Kroloff. “So we decided early on to create a very different kind of environment for viewing it. Instead of seeing only the fraction of the collection that most museums offer, our students, faculty, and visitors will have access to all 6,000 objects in a way that’s never been possible before. Cranbrook Art Museum and its collections will be an integrated teaching environment like no other.”
The $22 million-project at Cranbrook Art Museum was funded by Cranbrook Educational Community as one of several important restoration projects made possible by a recently completed $181 million Comprehensive Fundraising Campaign. Of this total, the Academy of Art and Art Museum raised nearly $46 million in annual and endowed support for programming, financial aid, faculty support, and new equipment. The $10 million lead gift to the Campaign was received from Maxine and Stuart Frankel and family.
About Cranbrook Art Museum
Cranbrook Art Museum is a contemporary art museum, and an integral part of Cranbrook Academy of Art, a community of Artists-in-Residence and graduate-level students of art, design and architecture. The Art Museum, which was established in 1930 and opened at its current site in 1942, is Eliel Saarinen’s final masterwork at Cranbrook. Today, the Art Museum presents original exhibitions and educational programming on modern and contemporary architecture, art, and design, as well as traveling exhibitions, films, workshops, travel tours, and lectures by renowned artists, designers, artists, and critics throughout the year.
For more information, call 248-645-3300 or visit us at www.cranbrookart.edu