kim ihnatko arch ed spiral: Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland Museum of Art exterior

I was an AFS exchange student in Cleveland in 1977 and a memorable highlight of the week was traveling to the Museum for my art history class. These days it's looking a little different.

The Museum was built in 1916 by local architects Hubbell and Benes as a Greek revival pavilion situated at the head of a park, overlooking a lake. Subsequent additions, including an education wing by Marcel Breuer, obscured the plan of the original structure creating a warren of spaces.

The New York firm of Rafael Viñoly Architects, won the commission in 2001, with the expansion and renovation finally reopening to the public January 2013.

The plan was to restore focus to the original 1916 building, "conceiving of it as a “jewel” set within a continuous ring of expansion space that includes the renovated Breuer building. The other additions were demolished to make way for a vast, indoor, sunlit piazza, topped by a curving canopy of glass and steel around which the entire museum is newly organized".

It's now a welcoming space to be, particularly on a winter's day.

entry to Gallery One on the lower level

restaurant and seating beyond the bamboo planting

The new Gallery One on the lower level, features the largest multi-touch microtile screen in the US, displaying images of over 3,500 objects from the museum’s permanent collection. This 12m long Collection Wall allows you to shape your own tours of the museum and to discover the full breadth of the collections on view throughout the museum’s galleries.
http://www.clevelandart.org/gallery-one

the interactive Collection Wall

new gallery space

The ArtLens, the museum’s new app for iPad means that before, during, or after your visit you can access over nine hours of additional multimedia content, including audio tour segments, videos, and additional contextual information. The interactive map in ArtLens uses indoor triangulation-location technology to help guide your way and find works of art with additional content nearby.