Barbara Hyde brought a gift to the groundbreaking of the future Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.
Speaking before a crowd of dignitaries and press under a tent at Union Avenue and Front Street Thursday morning, she announced that she and husband Pitt were making a $20 million commitment toward the completion of the facility that is expected to open in 2026.
That contribution brings the total raised to 75 percent of the $180 million fundraising goal for the project.
Zoe Kahr, the Brooks’ executive director, said she was confident that the museum will reach its goal. “Memphians invested $100 million in their new art museum before seeing a single rendering,” she said. “Tennesseans committed another $35 million to their oldest and largest art museum before construction began.”
Four years ago, the museum had an event on the site to announce that renowned design firm Herzog & de Meuron of Basel, Switzerland and New York, would collaborate with Memphis-based archimania, the architect of record.
Occupying the site that day was a fire station and parking garage. In recent months, those have been razed and plans are proceeding to do seismic work and construction.
The new 122,000 square-foot building will feature nearly 50 percent more gallery space than the museum’s current home in Overton Park. The space will be used to to exhibit Memphis’ growing permanent art collection, as well as new spaces for education and art-making for all ages. Officials said the new Brooks will include “600 percent more art-filled public spaces than the current facility.”
The new Brooks will have a restaurant and gift shop, highlighting Memphis markers and artists. A community courtyard in the heart of the building will be 10,000 square feet, the size of two full NBA courts. The rooftop will provides visitors with an expansive green-space: an art park in the sky with an event pavilion. The courtyard and the rooftop will be open to the public without museum admission.
The museum campus will include a new pedestrian plaza shared by the museum and Cossitt Library as well as connecting the Bluff Walk, which now ends behind Cossitt Library, and the River Walk on Union Avenue.
The museum’s wide open areas will afford views of the Mississippi River. Pedestrians on Front Street will have a view into the gallery level. The other side facing the river will be more closed off to minimize the effects of sunlight, but there will be two windows.
“Our architects did a beautiful job of thinking about the site and how to optimize that pedestrian experience where you look into the museum and you understand what’s in there so you’re not intimidated,” Kahr said.
She also noted that the entire rooftop will be a garden. “It will have art, it’ll have programs, it’s going to have a beautiful event pavilion. I think it’s going to be the best place to get married in Memphis, but I may be biased.”
Kahr said that the museum is intentional about its art spaces. “We’re creating discrete moments where you’re immersed in the art and then you’re brought back to the river. Its public spaces are all about the river.”
When she arrived to take over at the Brooks last November, Kahr knew that changes and challenges would be in the mix, and she was looking forward to it.
“It’s so unusual to get the chance to reexamine and reinstall your permanent collection,” she said. “I’d say we’re leading with that as a set of projects, and our curatorial team has really been spending a lot of time thinking about what stories we can tell from our collection.”
They’re also looking at what objects are not in the collection. “What do we need to tell those stories that we think are important? That’s been a primary focus. But then we’re also thinking about what will be on view here in terms of loan exhibitions.”
