2011 Recipient | AIA Institute Honor Awards for Architecture

University of Michigan Museum of Art | Notes of Interest

The purpose of the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) was to completely renovate and modernize the existing Alumni Hall, a 40,362 square foot facility, and build an additional 53,452 square feet of space in a dramatic new wing. Located at the gateway to the University’s main campus and at the physical intersection of the University and local communities, the Museum rests in a location offering the potential for direct engagement between the Museum, the student body and the general public.

The historic restoration and expansion is the realization of a long-held (over 50-year) dream to bring the Museum’s spaces up to par with its superb collection, exhibitions and programs. Housed in a 1910 Beaux-Arts structure that was able to exhibit only five percent of its holdings, the museum undertook an ambitious expansion campaign to more than double its overall size.

As a teaching museum with broad, near universal collections, the institution serves as a forum for the various academic disciplines of the University as well as a cultural portal for the community of Ann Arbor. While the existing building provides an atmosphere of seclusion, the new architecture achieves an immediacy with the surrounding campus - inviting and even provoking engagement with the building and its programs.

As the first purpose-built facility for the visual arts at the University of Michigan, the expansion becomes a new gateway to the historic museum – an open and inviting space that orients students and visitors to the experience of the art within.

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