The Studio Museum in Harlem has just announced plans for the grand opening of its new 125th Street home. After closing in 2018 to embark on the multimillion-dollar expansion project, the building will welcome visitors next fall. The first exhibition will feature the work of late artist and activist Tom Lloyd, whose sculptures appeared in the museum’s inaugural show in 1968, staged at a rented Fifth Avenue loft.
Designed by British architect David Adjaye, the 82,000-square-foot building will more than double the institution’s previous exhibition and public space across five stories. The structure features a theater, an education center, a studio for its artists in residence and a café, while the offices will make their way to the National Urban League’s new headquarters just across the street. To complete their vision for a head-to-toe transformation, the museum tapped Harlem-based design firm Studio Zewde to landscape their rooftop terrace.
“This building represents the collective aspirations of all who have been involved in thinking about what it would mean to make a museum on 125th Street devoted to the work of Black artists,” museum director Thelma Golden told the New York Times. “This space allows us to fully execute on all of the work that we have been known to do, but gives us so much more capacity and so much more possibility.”
The first facility designed specifically for the institution, the Studio Museum in Harlem ushers in a new era for audiences, artists and the greater Harlem community. For more information about the Studio Museum’s reopening, check out their website and follow them on Instagram.
