Breaking New Ground: The Mint Museum Expansion

April 11, 2009 - March 2010

Mint Museum of Art

Currently under construction in Charlotte's Center City is a major expansion project for The Mint Museum: a new 145,000 sq.ft., five-story facility that wil combine inspiring architecture with groundbreaking exhibitions. The new building will house the entire collection of the Mint Museum of Craft + Design as well as the American art and Contemporary art collections from the Mint Museum of Art on Randolph Road. Scheduled to open in the fall of 2010, the new facility will include over 36,000 sq.ft. of exhibition space as well as studios, classrooms, an interactive Family Gallery, a 250-seat auditorium, a cafe, a rooftop terrace and the multi-story Robert Haywood Morrison Atrium.

The opening of the Center City location will enable the original Mint Museum of Art on Randolph Road to expand its gallery space for the Ceramics, Art of the Ancient Americas and Historic Costume and Fashionable Dress collections, along with European Art, Spanish Colonial Art, Asian Art and Coins and Currency. An expanded research library is also being planned.

The Design Team

• Machado and Silvetti  Design Architect
  • Award-winning and nationally recognized, this Boston firm's other clients include the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Public Library and Harvard University.
  • Short biographical entries on the principals from archinnovations
• Clark Patterson Lee  Executive Architect
  • With over 200 architects in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and New York, this full-service firm has collaborated with the Mint Museum on other projects over the past 10 years , most notably the plan and design of the Mint Museum of Craft + Design
  • Other clients include the South Carolina State Museum, Charlotte Country Day School and Shalom Park Jewish Community Center

• George Sexton Associates Lighting Associates
  • A renowned firm based in Washington, DC with an innovative approach to the field of museum planning, exhibition design and lighting design
  • Other projects include the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Denver Art Museum, and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich, England

Cultural Campus

Located within the Center City, the new facility will become a part of Charlotte's proposed cultural campus suported by grants from the James L. Knight Foundation, Bank of America, Duke Energy and the Wachovia Foundation as a part of the 2006 Campaign for Cultural Facilities headed by the Arts and Science Council. Facilities benefiting from the campaign include: 

• The Knight Theater, a 1,200-seat performing arts theater 
• The Bechtler Art Museum, housing a private collection of modern art
• The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture
• Wake Forest University Graduate School
• Discovery Place
• North Carolina Dance Theater
• Charlotte Sympony Orchestra

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Created by Rebecca Stockin, volunteer for the Mint Museum Library