A new and expanded campus at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum has been completed, reopening this summer and featuring new architecture designed by the architectural office of OMA New York, led by partner Shohei Shigematsu and project architects Lawrence Siu and Paxton Sheldahl, with Cooper Robertson (executive architect). The new expansion includes the Jeffrey E. Gundlach Building and extensive renovations to existing buildings. A $20-million commitment from New York State and Governor Kathy Hochul helped fulfill the expansion’s budget and completes the $230 million capital campaign, the largest campaign for a cultural institution in the history of Western New York State.

Common Sky © Marco Cappelletti, Courtesy of OMA

After the 3.5-year project was completed, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) welcomed its local community visitors, special guests and supporters from around the world for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the start of the museum’s summer season.

The event marked the first opportunity for the public to visit the museum’s renewed and vastly expanded campus. The new Buffalo AKG Museum now comprises more than 50,000 square feet of prime exhibition space, five state-of-the-art studio classrooms, the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Town Square and more than half an acre of new public green space situated above an underground parking garage. Designed with substantial input from communities throughout Western New York and the museum’s leadership, the renewed and expanded campus is ensconced within the city’s beloved Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Delaware Park.

© Marco Cappelletti, Courtesy of OMA

The new campus, including the museum’s renovated Robert and Elisabeth Wilmers Building, the Seymour H. Knox Building and the new Ralph Wilson Town Square (featuring Common Sky, a new monumental site-specific artwork by Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann of Studio Other Spaces) is now fully open to the public.  On the campus’s north side, the Jeffrey E. Gundlach Building, a signature architecture by OMA/Shohei Shigematsu in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, is also fully open.

“As one of the oldest public art institutions in the country, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum expansion is a transformative project that will provide a significant boost to Buffalo’s future,” said Kathy Hochul, governor, New York. “This project will add new life and vitality to this historic and great institution and is a continuation of the ongoing revitalization of Western New York.”

© Marco Cappelletti, Courtesy of OMA

Current exhibitions include Through a Modernist Lens: Buffalo and the Photo-Secession (through Oct. 30, 2023), Looking Back: Lucas Samaras’s Mirrored Room (through Jan. 2, 2024) and Clyfford Still: A Legacy for Buffalo (through Feb. 19, 2024). Visit here for prices and reserving tickets in advance.