The newly constructed Princeton University Art Museum welcomed an overwhelming 21,763 visitors during its spectacular 24-hour grand opening celebration that began at 5 p.m. on Friday, October 31, 2025. The opening event featured continuous programming including dancing, stargazing, art-making workshops, live performances, and film screenings, marking the culmination of a five-year construction project.
Museum Director James Steward addressed the massive crowd that had lined up far past the gates of Prospect House, expressing his emotional anticipation for the moment. "I've waited five years for this moment. I think I'm going to get a little emotional. Welcome, everyone!" he declared before pulling open the doors. Within minutes, the museum came alive with excited voices and the bustling energy of visitors filling its halls, stairs, and galleries in every direction.
The response from visitors was overwhelmingly positive throughout the extended celebration. Ron Davidson, a Princeton resident, called the open house "a once-in-a-lifetime celebration," while staff member Natalia Ermolaev, executive director of the Center for Digital Humanities, described it as "truly inspiring." She noted how her two young children were captivated by everything from Nick Cave's vibrant mosaic at the entrance to the thousand-year-old Roman mosaics glowing beneath their feet.
Even during the overnight hours, the museum maintained remarkable activity levels. Just past midnight, nearly 1,000 students and community members flooded in, and at 1:30 a.m., the Grand Hall was packed with 42 teams participating in a trivia contest about the museum's collections. Less than eight hours later, at 9 a.m. Saturday, the same three-story Grand Hall was filled to capacity again, this time with participants sitting in near-total silence for a live music meditation featuring the Richardson Chamber Players performing Schoenberg's "Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4."
The week leading up to the public opening included special preview events that drew significant attendance. About 3,500 undergraduate and graduate students attended a dedicated student preview, while an additional 2,100 faculty, staff, and tradespeople who worked on the museum attended two separate preview events. On Sunday, the museum's first day of regular operations, it attracted another 3,256 visitors.
The new museum's innovative design features nine interlocking pavilions arranged in a donut shape, intentionally avoiding a prescribed path through the galleries. Steward explained that this design encourages visitors to "wander at will until you see something that captures you and then stop." He emphasized his belief in "the ability of good architecture to pull us out of ourselves and our workaday preoccupations, including inviting us to slow down, arresting us in our tracks, and making possible the moments of pure transport that engaging with a great work of art can then afford."
The museum's curatorial approach features striking juxtapositions designed to provoke thoughtful engagement. In the second-floor Orientation Gallery, John Singer Sargent's 1887 oil portrait of Elizabeth Allen Marquand hangs beside contemporary artist Mario Moore's 2019 oil portrait of Princeton University Art Museum security guard Michael Moore. In another section, Andy Warhol's 1962 "Blue Marilyn" is displayed alongside a series of late medieval and early Renaissance stained glass windows.
Steward explained that these artistic dialogues are designed to "provoke people out of their comfort zones a little bit, but gently." The goal is to encourage visitors drawn to traditional or historical objects to give contemporary art "a chance," and vice versa. This approach is made possible by the museum's extensive collections, which began at the University even before the American Revolution, allowing curators to "try to grapple with the whole of the world under one roof."
The museum's design prioritizes close examination of artworks through various innovative features. Most art is displayed without protective glass, and many cases include drawers that visitors can open to view additional pieces. Chief Curator Juliana Ochs Dweck encouraged visitors to explore these interactive elements, noting that the drawers contain "Rembrandt etchings, Japanese block prints, 19th-century photographs, contemporary innovations, intimate encounters that reward close study."
For students, the new facility represents a transformative addition to campus life. At their preview event, students packed the Grand Hall for performances by student-led ensembles including eXpressions, Princeton University Ballet, the Tigressions, and Quipfire!, along with a silent disco and an outdoor performance by Grammy Award-winning DJ Jazzy Jeff. However, Steward noted that "the real star of the show was the art," observing how students were "looking, they were reading the labels, and most of all, they were lingering."
Faith Ho, a sociology major and visual arts minor, expressed her excitement about using the museum "as a source of inspiration and also as a kind of rest from work," envisioning it as "a great place to hang out with friends, whether to explore an exhibit together or try an event." Graduate student Eliana Gagnon was particularly struck by discovering Claude Monet's "Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge," one of a series of 12 paintings by the artist of that scene, saying the experience "stirred the artist inside her" and reignited her passion for drawing.
The museum's academic integration includes six object study rooms available from 8 a.m. to 10:45 p.m., designed to encourage classes from every discipline to engage with the collection. Steward hopes professors across fields will bring students to study objects not just aesthetically but also for what they reveal about topics like species loss or material history. Upcoming faculty workshops will explore these interdisciplinary possibilities.
Professor Wendy Heller from the music department, who previously taught a Freshman Seminar called "Listening at the Museum," is looking forward to offering the course again in the new space. The seminar explored "the relationship between artworks and music, exploring the sonic world that was implicit in the artworks and the visual images suggested by the music." Ben Zhang, a lecturer in the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, envisions the museum as "a third space" for meeting students and believes the curatorial focus on dialogue across cultures "lends itself well to stimulating conversations on timeless themes."
The new museum has garnered significant praise from national and international media. The New York Times praised Princeton's art collection as "extraordinary, reflecting the largess and talents of the university's community over the generations," noting that "in a stunning new home, these objects seem to breathe and converse as never before." The Guardian called it "one of the finest art museums to be built anywhere in recent years," while NJArts.net declared it "a must to visit for any art lover," commending it for being "what a great university museum should be: smart, perturbing, rigorous, fire-starting."
Looking ahead, the museum has scheduled numerous upcoming events and programs. On November 20, Syrian-born American artist Diana Al-Hadid will discuss her artistic process and her commission "The Ziggurat Splits the Sky" for the new museum. On December 5, Alexandra Letvin, the Duane Wilder Associate Curator of European Art, will give a talk about the curation of the new Galleries of European Art. The museum also plans recitals and concerts featuring a 1909 Sébastien Érard piano and a Bösendorfer imperial grand piano, both gifted to the museum.
The museum operates with extended hours to accommodate various schedules: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and Saturday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday; and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. The Grand Hall, Orientation Gallery, and two artwalks crossing the building north to south and east to west remain open daily from 8 a.m. to 10:45 p.m., ensuring maximum accessibility for the university and broader community.
