Portland Art Museum Reveals Plans for $111 Million Expansion

Oregon’s Portland Art Museum announced an expected completion date of late 2025 for a major renovation and expansion that will add 95,000 square feet of new or upgraded public and gallery space to the institution. The project, which is anticipated to cost $111 million, is meant to transform the museum’s downtown campus into a “cultural commons,” one that offers increased access to the museum’s collection and programming and is aimed at attracting a diverse audience.

Collaboratively designed by Portland’s Hennebery Eddy Architects and Chicago’s Vinci Hamp Architects, the expansion includes a new 24,000-square-foot glass pavilion that will serve as the museum’s “front door.” The structure will be named after Latvian-born abstract painter Mark Rothko, who lived in Portland as a child and took art classes at the museum, which later hosted his inaugural solo exhibition. The pavilion will connect the museum’s 1932 main building, designed by Pietro Belluschi, and its Mark Building, a 1924 Frederick Fritsch–designed Masonic temple that it purchased in 1992.

Among the other additions to the museum are a sheltered, open-air passageway, a new café, and 2,700 square feet of exhibition space dedicated to contemporary art inside the Mark Building.  The institution’s collection is to be wholly reinstalled following the expansion, with a focus on Native American and contemporary art.

The museum has thus far raised $122 million of its $141 million goal, which encompasses the previously mentioned cost of the renovation and expansion as well as $30 million for its endowment. To date, 98 percent of funds raised have come from more than three hundred private donors. Gifts earmarked for the project have ranged from $1,000 to $13.5 million, the latter amount given by late arts patron Arlene Schnitzer.

“This project would not be possible without the generous support of so many people from Portland and across the region, along with the foundations and businesses who value the role that the arts play in our city,” said museum board chair Alix Meier Goodman in a statement, noting that the expansion will “ensure the museum continues to thrive for generations to come.”