The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) has shared new renderings of a major addition designed by SmithGroup.
The McGlothlin Wing II will connect to another VMFA addition from 1985, the Mellon and Lewis West Wing. It will host special exhibitions, events, and a new cafe bar.
The project will add another 173,000 square feet of exhibition space at VMFA. Approximately 45,000 square feet of existing museum space will be upgraded.
Design on the McGlothlin Wing II began in 2021, and the first batch of conceptual renderings by SmithGroup were shared in 2024. This latest series of visuals reveal more finite detailing in the facades and interior views of the wing.
An additional fifth floor and expansions to the museum’s south and west facades will be the most noticeable changes by SmithGroup.
SmithGroup said the new addition—expressed in fluted concrete and gently-curved, high-performing glass—reinterprets existing classical and postmodernist architecture in the existing building. The scalloped concrete panels are meant to reduce the massing’s scale.
“The new expansion erodes the traditional boundaries of the museum to welcome and engage visitors before they ever step inside,” SmithGroup design director Dayton Schroeter said in a statement. “It actively invites the public to linger, explore and experience art as part of everyday life—both inside and outside the museum.”
Large apertures will be strategically located in the addition’s facade to wash interior stairwells with natural light. The interior of McGlothlin Wing II will be lined in wood panels. It will house expanded galleries for VMFA’s collection of African, American, Indigenous American, and 20th and 21st century art collection.
European art and photography will remain in the existing gallery spaces under renovation. Ample outdoor space including lawns for informal seating, gathering, and displaying artworks will abound. Rhodeside & Harwell is the landscape architect on the project.
Construction is anticipated to begin summer 2026, and the wing is slated to open in 2029.
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