A new flagship building for the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Tennessee’s “largest and oldest” art institution, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, archimania, and OLIN is starting to take shape on the banks of the Mississippi River. When it opens later this year it will do so rebranded as the Memphis Art Museum.
Memphis Art Museum officials recently shared updated renderings of the campus and new construction photography that shows the building’s pale masonry facade and angular plinth being built.
Most of the exterior facade is now complete and its timber framing has been set. The truncated base is now clad. Photographs show the thoughtful brick detailing meant to emulate natural tones inspired by the Mississippi River’s clay banks. Windows have yet to be installed.
Memphis Art Museum first announced an international design competition to replace its existing building in 2019. Herzog & de Meuron won the competition and partnered with archimania, a local Memphis firm. OLIN was selected to serve as landscape architect.
Renderings of a new flagship were issued in 2021, and shovels broke ground two years later on the project, in 2023.
The campus will occupy a full city block in downtown Memphis. It will have 600 percent more public space than its predecessor and 50 percent more gallery space, museum officials previously noted. Numerous public artworks will be speckled in the outdoor spaces beyond the museum’s walls by renowned artists.
“The rapid progress of the new museum’s construction is apparent, and it is incredibly rewarding to see the many spaces we envisioned coming to life,” Herzog & de Meuron senior partner Ascan Mergenthaler said in a statement. “Already, the civic nature of the building is tangible, and one can sense the positive impact it will have on Memphis.”
Construction photographs show the courtyard underway with much of the structure in place. Memphis Art Museum officials tout the new building as among “the first major U.S. museums constructed using laminated timber.”
A 10,000-square-foot community courtyard will anchor the Memphis Art Museum, topped by a 50,000 square foot rooftop sculpture garden. The Memphis Art Museum will share a public plaza with the Cossitt Library.
Galleries will be organized into 18 distinct exhibitions. The architecture is meant to enable visual and conceptual dialogue between galleries, reinforcing themes that move through the museum, officials said.
Liberation will be a key theme, the museum stated. Over 75,000 photographs documenting Black life from the Hooks Brothers Studio archive will be part of the collection.
Works by Samford Biggers, Brittney Boyd Bullock, Ebony Patterson, and others will also be in the Memphis Art Museum’s collection. More details about forthcoming exhibitions will be shared in the next few months.
The Memphis Art Museum is slated to open December 2026.
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