Bruce Museum in Greenwich Undergoing $45 Million Expansion, More than Doubling Its Size

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The New Bruce expansion and renovation project

Image from the Bruce Museum website

What part of the outside of the new building is expected to look like. The small museum owns 20,000 objects.

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The Bruce Museum in Greenwich has begun a $45 million project to renovate the arts/sciences/children’s museum and more than double its size.

When complete, the project will expand the museum from 30,000 to 70,000 square feet, adding state-of-the-art exhibition galleries for art and science, new education spaces for hosting visiting school children, families and community groups, as well as a restaurant, auditorium, and meeting spaces.

— This article adapts various announcements from the Bruce Museum along with information from the museum website. Already the largest and most significant arts and sciences museum between New Haven and New York City, this expansion will make it even larger. The museum is free on Tuesdays.

The museum will remain open for almost the entire construction project.

The Project

The New Bruce project — the first since a $4.3 million expansion in 1992 — is already under way, with expansion and improvements to the museum’s parking lot completed in the fall of 2018.

The next phase of construction is expected to proceed in the fall of 2019 with the renovation of the current changing gallery spaces.

These enhancements will be followed, in early 2020, by a complete renovation and reinvention of the permanent science galleries, which will occupy the existing building.

The New Bruce expansion and renovation project

Image from the Bruce Museum website

What part of the outside of the new building is expected to look like. The small museum owns 20,000 objects.

Groundbreaking for the art wing will take place spring-summer of 2020.

The centerpiece of the New Bruce is a three-story, 40,000 square-foot addition that will more than double the size of the current museum, offering more space for both art and science.

Designed by the New Orleans firm of Eskew + Dumez + Ripple, the building will open directly onto Bruce Park and feature a delicate striated façade of cast stone and glass inspired by the surfaces of Connecticut rock quarries.

Financing

The New Bruce construction, renovation, and endowment project will be financed by private, corporate, and foundation gifts secured through the fundraising campaign.

The $60 million “Campaign for the New Bruce” includes $15 million for the museum’s endowment, to ensure sustainability and support new programs. More than $5 million has been raised for the endowment to date.

The museum recently announced that the project has received a $15 million lead gift from William L. Richter. This puts the “Campaign for the New Bruce” 75 percent of the way toward the construction goal of $45 million.

The New Bruce

Image from the Bruce Museum Newsletter

Another view of the outside of the building.

The gift, the largest to the campaign to date, will support construction of the new art wing. A longtime resident of Greenwich, Richter is co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management L.P.

“This is truly a tipping point in the campaign,” said Peter C. Sutton, director emeritus. “Our gratitude to Bill Richter will endure for the life of the institution.”

“I was inspired by the museum’s bold plans for the future and particularly admire the appearance of the building, as well as its functionality,” Richter said. “I hope that this gift to the Bruce and to the town of Greenwich will be the catalyst for further progress in making it a reality.”

The museum building and its collections of more than 20,000 objects are resources owned by the town of Greenwich and held in trust for the people of Greenwich by a separate, privately funded 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Bruce Museum Inc.

Robert Wolterstorff, who became the museum’s new Susan E. Lynch Executive Director on June 1, said, “What a thrill to step into the museum at such an auspicious moment. Mr. Richter’s gift moves us dramatically closer to our $45 million construction goal.”

The museum receives financial support from the town of Greenwich for select maintenance and facilities expenditures. Bruce Museum Inc. is responsible for all other ongoing operational and administrative costs.

Features of the ‘New Bruce’

Here’s how the museum describes what will be offered after the expansion:

ART HISTORY

In the museum’s new permanent art galleries, visitors will be able to explore the history of art and return to visit their favorite works. With artworks ranging in date from the fourth century B.C. to the early twenty-first century, the New Bruce will have space to celebrate the achievements of artists from diverse cultures around the world.

Art Gallery Rendering Bruce Museum

Image from the Bruce Museum website

What the new art gallery space is expected to look like when the Bruce Museum expansion project is complete

Gallery space featuring choice selections of Native American works of art, Asian ceramics and textiles, and Pre-Columbian objects will draw art lovers and historians alike.

Other permanent galleries will feature work by artists including Max Beckmann, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, Lucian Freud, David Hockney, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andrew Wyeth.

SCIENCE

Science and natural history will have a much larger space for both permanent and temporary installations in the New Bruce. Encompassing all of the museum’s existing galleries, the science wing of the Bruce will now have the space to explore discoveries of the past, present breakthroughs and the possibilities for the future.

Science gallery rendering Bruce Museum

Image from the Bruce Museum website

What an exhibition in the new and enlarged Science Gallery would look like

The permanent science galleries will be redesigned and reinstalled, adding more exceptional minerals, fossils, and unique specimens of the natural world to the Bruce Museum’s collection.

With new lighting and sound effects in the diorama and updates to the “interactives” that include dinosaurs and live animal displays, the permanent science galleries will present a multi-sensory expedition through the region’s rich natural history.

PROGRAMS FOR FAMILIES

The Bruce Museum’s popular in-house programs for families will expand exponentially. The educational spaces of the new Bruce will inspire wonder, spark creativity, and promote understanding of art and science for all ages.

Spaces dedicated to hands-on learning will triple in size. Two new education workshops will showcase interactive activities in art and science, offering families and student groups memorable ways to explore the themes presented in the New Bruce.

Leisure and Learning

The flexible design of spaces such as the lecture hall will enable visitors to engage with visual culture and the natural world during such events as film series, “lunch and learn” sessions, or drinks and conversation with thought-leaders in art and science.

Food and drink will be offered in the new café, with 40 tables overlooking the newly acquired Keith Haring sculpture in Bruce Park. The café will also include a patio.

Equipped with state of the art audio and visual systems, the new Bruce Museum’s community spaces will be available to outside groups as venues for a meetings, presentations, workshops, cocktail parties, dinners or receptions, with one-of-a-kind backdrops in art and science.

Learn More

To learn more about the Campaign for the New Bruce, visit the “About Us” section at BruceMuseum.org.

Renderings, floor plans, and a video of the New Bruce expansion and renovation project are now on display in the lobby rotunda. Come take a look!

To join the Campaign for the New Bruce, you can contact Whitney Lucas Rosenberg, Director of Development and Institutional Advancement, at 203-413-6765 or wrosenberg@brucemuseum.org, or Barbara Tavrow, Campaign Advisor for the New Bruce, at 203-413-6760 or btavrow@brucemuseum.org.

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