The Frick Art & Historical Center’s Board of Trustees announces a $15 million expansion and renovation project that will begin with a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Orientation Center on Thursday, June 6, 2013 at 11:30 AM.
The Frick is anchored by The Frick Art Museum and Clayton, the Point Breeze home of industrialist Henry Clay Frick and his family and the legacy of Mr. Frick’s daughter, philanthropist Helen Clay Frick. As the 25th anniversary of Clayton’s opening to the public approaches, a multi-phase renovation project has been developed to unite the Frick’s various components and maximize its potential to educate, enlighten and serve its diverse audiences. In addition to the Orientation Center, the project will create a new Education Center, expand and improve the Frick’s collection storage facilities and provide additional space for community events. The project will allow the Frick to expand its cultural offerings and foster the Frick’s role as an anchor for and magnet to its neighboring communities in the East End.
The project consists of three interrelated elements. The first phase, construction of an Orientation Center, incorporates educational technology that will enable visitors to learn about the Frick family and life in Pittsburgh at the end of the 19th century. The Center will also include a new Museum Shop, thus enabling the restoration of the Frick family Children’s Playhouse (where the Museum Shop is now located) as a site for children’s exhibitions and programs. The Orientation Center, along with an adjacent newly landscaped courtyard, is expected to be completed by early summer 2014.
The second phase calls for a new Education Center that will be housed in a renovated facility (the current Carriage Gallery of the Car and Carriage Museum). In addition, a new Carriage Gallery—constructed behind and integrated with the existing Car Gallery—will allow the Frick to better exhibit its important collection of Frick family carriages. This facility will also include climate-controlled, secure and readily accessible storage for the Frick’s varied collections.
In the third phase of the project, the Frick will construct a new Community Center that will provide additional education and program space and create a venue for rental events.
When completed, this plan will join together the multiple components of the Frick, support the enhancement and expansion of its educational offerings and enrich the experience of more than 125,000 annual visitors.
The Frick has engaged an architectural team of Schwartz/Silver and Associates (Boston) and Loysen + Kreuthmeier (Pittsburgh) to design the new buildings and renovated spaces. Schwartz/Silver has particular experience in successfully integrating multi-facility museum campuses while Loysen + Kreuthmeier is known for environmentally sensitive work in the Pittsburgh area. The architectural team has been working under the direction of Frick staff and an actively-engaged Building and Grounds Committee, chaired by Trustee Joel R. Bernard, a principal of IKM, Inc. (Pittsburgh). www.thefrickpittsburgh.org