MSOE art museum renovation begins
| Published: 09/20/2006 |
|
The demolition for renovation of MSOE's art museum at Broadway and State Street has begun. When completed, it will provide space to display MSOE's Man at Work art collection, the world's most comprehensive collection of its kind, as well as faculty offices for the General Studies Department. The 38,000-square-foot building will feature a three-story steel and glass atrium entrance and a rooftop sculpture garden. MSOE purchased the building, formerly the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, with donated funds last year.
The museum will provide a destination venue for the campus community and pubic to view these works, although an opening date has not been released. Substantial renovations are being coordinated by general contractor The Bentley Company; Uihlein Wilson is the architect.
The concrete structure was built in 1924 as an automobile dealership that for many years was called Metropolitan Cadillac. Extensive changes to the façade were made in 1975. The Federal Reserve Bank occupied the building for at least 20 years until closing in 2004. The building was vacant until MSOE purchased it in 2005.
The collection of European and American paintings, prints, drawings and sculptures depicting various forms of work -- from manpower and horsepower to water, steam and electrical power -- is the world's most comprehensive collection of its kind and numbers nearly 600 pieces made between the 17th and 20th centuries. It was gifted to MSOE in 2000 from the collection of Dr. Eckhart Grohmann, a Milwaukee businessman, collector and MSOE Regent, as a teaching tool and as an object lesson in the integration of aesthetics into a curriculum that increasingly includes the humanities.
The museum will allow for more pieces of this unique collection to be viewed together and allow for better access to it. A portion of the collection is now displayed in several buildings on campus and MSOE has hosted a number of themed exhibitions, such as landscapes, bridges and power, shown during regular hours and during events such as the city-wide Gallery Night and Day.