READY FOR THE PUBLIC: Auguste Rodin’s “The Age of Bronze” is a focal point of the Princeton University Art Museum’s European Art gallery. The museum opens on Halloween. (Photo by Richard Barnes)
By Anne Levin
The Princeton University Art Museum is set to officially open its doors with a 24-hour-marathon of activities starting at 5 p.m. on Halloween. At a press preview on October 17, the 32 new galleries, multipurpose Grand Hall, third floor “Mosaic” restaurant, and 12,000 square-foot education center looked more than ready to welcome the public.
University students will get their own preview on October 25, and museum members can tour the building on October 26.
It has been 10 years since plans to expand the previous museum took shape. The old building was demolished to make room for the new, designed by Adjaye Associates with Cooper Robertson as executive architect. In nine pavilions connected by two artwalks, the museum is twice the size of its predecessor and has four times the amount of gallery space.
In its 250 years of existence, the University’s collections have grown to include “over 117,000 objects that span the globe and 5,000 years of human history, leading to what is, in my view, one of our most potent characteristics, and that is our ‘under-one-roofness,’” said James Steward, the museum’s director, in his welcoming remarks.
The public has always had access to the collections, “even if in the 19th century a visitor had to apply to a janitor in East Pyne for the key to the room in which the displays were housed,” said Steward. “We’ve made it easier and more secure since then, but we’ve also kept it free.”
The heart of the building is its Grand Hall, which is three stories high and has skylights that open into the room. Filled with comfortable seating and tables, it can be converted into a 250-person lecture hall. Most of the displays are on the second floor, which is reached by a grand staircase, which faces a medieval Spanish staircase. In four of the seven pavilions dedicated to gallery display, daylight is brought in through a complex skylight system, allowing for evenly diffused, controlled daylight to complement the artificial lighting system.
Currently on display in one of two temporary exhibition spaces is “Princeton Collects,” which celebrates donations made to the museum over the last four years. A pavilion is dedicated to contemporary and modern art, and two others are for Ancient Mediterranean and Art of the Ancient Americas. A section is dedicated to photography.
The Grand Hall is surrounded by glass cases that display bowls, vases, and additional objects that would otherwise be in storage. There are special viewing rooms, designed to give museumgoers a break. Windows overlook portions of the campus and other sections of the building.
Keeping the museum in the center of the campus rather than relocating it to a less central site was key.
“That the museum continues to be situated in the heart of the University’s historic core, just a short walk from Princeton’s bustling downtown and no more than a 10-minute walk from all of our student residence halls, is one of its most important design features,” said Steward. “Building on a remote edge location might have been easier and less disruptive; building at the heart of things signals the importance this University places on the arts and humanities as well as on making art a part of the experience of everyday life.”
The celebratory open house on October 31 will include open studio hours; gallery activities; a Halloween fair and dance party; screenings of The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ratatouille, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Coco, and Hocus Pocus; tours of the collections; a costume contest; a performance of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; a silent disco; a staged reading of Britannicus; a reading by Jhumpa Lahiri; and much more. Visit artmuseum.princeton.edu for times and details.