The Art Institute of Chicago will begin construction in early 2026 on an ambitious $50 million transformation project that will convert the museum's former main exhibition space into a cutting-edge conservation center. This major undertaking will trigger a cascading series of gallery reconfigurations throughout the museum complex, marking the most significant architectural change since the $294 million Modern Wing opened in 2009.
James Rondeau, the museum's president and director, emphasized the project's transformative impact on the institution. "We will have one of the best facilities in the nation, not just in terms of size but in terms of talent, equipment and accessibility," he stated. "This is a big move for us, and it's going to put conservation from a place of invisibility to centrality in its visibility in our campus."
The new 25,000-square-foot facility will be named the Grainger Center for Conservation and Science, featuring state-of-the-art conservation laboratories, administrative offices, and a dedicated study center. Additionally, the center will include a public gallery space designed for conservation-related exhibitions and viewing areas where visitors can observe conservators working on artworks in real-time.
This emphasis on public engagement reflects a growing national trend among museums to make conservation work more visible and accessible to visitors. Francesca Casadio, the Art Institute's vice president and executive director of conservation and science, explained the educational value of this approach. "It's another way to really engage our public and diversify the types of experiences that we offer," she said. "It's a way also of demonstrating that these objects have lives and they are not static."
The two-story conservation center will occupy the space currently known as Regenstein Hall, which has served as the museum's primary temporary exhibition gallery since opening in the Rice Building in 1988, along with the first-floor area beneath it. Rondeau noted that this location was strategically chosen because it offers the appropriate size and proximity to essential mechanical services required for conservation work.
To accommodate this major change, Regenstein Hall will temporarily relocate to a space south of the museum's Asian galleries, an area that previously housed works from the Arts of Africa and Ancient Americas collections. This relocation will necessitate a comprehensive reorganization of several collections throughout the museum.
Selections from the displaced Ancient Americas collection will be integrated into the existing Arts of the Americas display in the Rice Building. Meanwhile, portions of the Arts of Africa holdings are currently featured in "Critical Fabulation," a recently opened exhibition in the Modern Wing guest-curated by Simone Leigh, a Chicago-born artist who represented the United States at the 2022 Venice Biennale.
While the temporary location for Regenstein Hall is approximately half the size of its former 15,000-square-foot space, Rondeau expressed confidence that the smaller configuration will not hinder operations or visitor capacity. "In the intermediate phase – the contraction – we're programming to make it work, to make sense," he explained.
Looking toward the future, museum leadership is already planning for a permanent new location for Regenstein Hall, though the specific site has not yet been determined. Rondeau confirmed that the future space will match the size of the original hall and emphasized his vision for enhanced public accessibility. "My intention long term is to put exhibitions in a more front-and-center place – either on Michigan Avenue or Columbus Drive with a greater degree of transparency and availability so that if you are driving by the Art Institute you can see there is a Van Gogh show on," he said.
The architectural design for the Grainger Center has been entrusted to the Spanish firm Barozzi Veiga, which the museum initially hired in 2017 to develop a comprehensive architectural master plan and reimagine how collections are presented throughout the facility. The project also involves collaboration with Interactive Design Architects in Chicago and Samuel Anderson Architects in New York.
Both Rondeau and Casadio characterized this project as the museum's most substantial investment in conservation infrastructure since hiring its first painting conservator in 1956. For Casadio, who has worked at the institution for 22 years, the project represents a career-defining achievement. "It's definitely the high point of my career," she said. "It will just put us on a completely new level."
The need for this comprehensive overhaul has been building for decades, according to Rondeau, as the current conservation facilities fail to match the caliber of the museum's world-class conservation team, which is currently scattered across multiple locations within the building. "We literally have scientists working in repurposed broom closets," he noted, highlighting the inadequacy of the present arrangements.
The new center will unite the museum's 30 conservators and 10 additional department staff members in a single location for the first time, promoting greater efficiency and enhanced collaboration among team members. Among the facility's notable improvements, 20-foot ceilings will enable specialists to work more effectively on large-scale paintings and objects. This enhancement addresses a longstanding practical challenge – when "The Assumption of the Virgin" (1577-79), a 13¼-foot-tall painting by El Greco, underwent conservation in 2018, Frank Zuccari, the museum's former head of conservation, was forced to work with the massive painting positioned on its side due to space constraints.
The Grainger Center for Conservation and Science is expected to open to the public in Fall 2027. The facility bears the name of the Grainger Foundation, which has provided substantial support for conservation work at the museum over several decades and contributed the largest single donation toward the center's construction and development.
