The Barnes Foundation plans to open its new site on the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia in 2011, officials said Wednesday.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Mayor Michael Nutter were expected to be among a contingent on hand Wednesday to unveil a series of massive banners surrounding the construction site.
Demolition of a city-owned building at the site will start this winter. Construction will start in Fall 2009, paving the way for the Barnes’ move from suburban Lower Merion Township, Pa.
The Barnes and its massive collection of paintings from masters like Picasso, van Gogh and Matisse will join a stretch of museums that includes the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Rodin Museum, the Franklin Institute and the Academy of Natural Sciences.
In 2002, the Barnes unveiled plans to move to the city, but was delayed by a long court battle and by the fundraising effort.
About $150 million has been raised, which is expected to cover the cost of construction and an endowment — though final costs have not been established, the Barnes said.
Fundraising was led by the Annenberg Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Lenfest Foundation, Neubauer Foundation and William Penn Foundation, which donated between $10 million and $30 million apiece.
For the new Barnes Foundation Art Education Campus, as it will be officially known, the Barnes has assembled an all-star team.
Lead architect will be the New York firm of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, which designed the American Folk Art Museum in New York City; the Neurosciences Institute in LaJolla, Calif.; the Cranbrook Academy of Art’s Williams Natatorium in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.; expansion of the Phoenix Art Museum; and, locally, Skirkanich Hall at the University of Pennsylvania’s engineering school.
The architects will be supported by a Philadelphia firm, Ballinger, serving as associate architect. The Olin Partnership of Philadelphia has been hired as landscape architect, with New York-based Fisher Marantz Stone as lighting designers.
As external project manager, Philadelphia-based Aegis Property Group has been hired. L.F. Driscoll Co. of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., will serve as construction managers. The Barnes Foundation’s project executive will be Bill McDowell.
The Barnes Foundation was established in 1922 by Dr. Albert C. Barnes. It is currently located on 12 acres.
It houses one of the world’s largest collections of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and early Modern paintings, with extensive holdings by Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, Rousseau, Modigliani, Soutine and de Chirico, as well as African sculpture and Native American ceramics, American furniture and metalwork, and antiquities from the Mediterranean region and Asia.
Barnes Art Education Facility is a valued client to The Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation. The creation of the $80 million Barnes Art Education facility on The Parkway is structured through a land lease between the City and PAID. PAID is also administering a $30 million Commonwealth Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program Grant. Demolition and site work started in 2008.
The Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC), is a private, not-for-profit corporation created in 1958 by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and the Commerce Department of the City of Philadelphia to promote economic development and job creation throughout the City. PIDC provides financing programs and real estate products to business and developer client groups in all neighborhoods of Philadelphia.
For further information on PIDC contact Peter S. Longstreth, President, Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, 2600 Centre Square West, 1500 Market St., Philadelphia, PA 19102-2126, phone (215) 496-8181.
