BlogBack: Director Louis Grachos on the Albright-Knox Expansion

We took a first step in a long thorough process by commissioning Richard Gluckman about 1½ years ago to give us some conceptual drawings as to what a 50,000-square-foot facility to house our growing collection might look like on our current campus. We asked him to look at the feasibility of a specific off-site location, as well.  The Gluckman commission was meant to get our board and staff thinking about the possibilities of an expansion, not as a final plan.

Now a committee has been formed to begin the architect search, but we are at least one year away from selecting an architect.  Parallel to the architect search will be a feasibility study for a capital campaign to fund the project.

The expansion project had nothing to do with the funds raised from deaccessioning which are in a restricted endowment for the purchase of art.  Under the best circumstances, this project is at least six to eight years away from completion.

As you may know, our last successful expansion took place in 1962 and as our collection continues to grow the Gallery could benefit from a substantial increase in space.