Taking a trip through time will soon be as simple as taking a few steps through the rooms of the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA).
TMA will soon begin work on a multiphase two-year transformation and reinstallation of its collection that will display its artwork chronologically.
“We will begin with antiquity in the East Wing and as you move West along the footprints of the museum, you’ll move through time, so you’ll move through the medieval period, into the early modern period, through modernism, and to contemporary art which will be at the West Wing. So, you’ll be able to walk through 5,000 years of human history across our 125,000 square feet of galleries,” said Adam Levine, director of the Toledo Museum of Art.
This new layout of the TMA’s collection will allow visitors to see how societies have evolved and grown by working together.
“One of the really exciting things about the chronological installation is,” Levine adds, “it allows you, as you walk through time, to see the way that societies across the world have always been connected…the artwork literally shows how societies are connected…and what will happen is over time you’ll see that that connection becomes more and more global as a function of technology…You’ll see that things become more globalized.”
TMA will be redesigning its art galleries to showcase the variety and quality of the museum’s collection, which will include innovative uses of technology. This includes refinishing some of the gallery walls.
“[Some of] the walls to the galleries are burlap, covered in nail holes and have water stains. There will be [new] wall colors and they will be vibrant and appropriate to the artwork, but we are absolutely replacing these very outdated, very tired, and not up to standard walls,” said Levine.
The museum will also focus on improving visitor amenities.
“We’ve redone the bathrooms… we’re going to be redoing our heating and cooling system, we’re going to be integrating new and comfortable furniture for visitors to sit in in the galleries,” said Levine.
The transformation will involve the entire TMA campus, including the Edward B. Green building, the SANAA Glass Pavilion and the Georgia and David K. Welles Sculpture Garden.
The three design partners chosen by the museum to work on the transformation and reinstallation project include Los Angeles-based Michael Maltzan Architecture, and two New York-based firms, Once-Future Office and Studio Zewde (pronounced ‘Zodee’) .
Michael Maltzan lived in Bowling Green for a time and previously worked at Toledo Museum of Art, and Levine praises Maltzan’s involvement with the project.
“He really understands the Toledo Museum of Art and really understands the community. His team is incredible, but Michael is himself on this team. They’re helping us think about the design and display, their firm is our lead project partner, “said Levine
TMA’s skilled team of curators will be placing the artwork but according to Levine, it’s a team effort between the museum and Maltzan’s team.
“(They’re) working very closely with the Maltzan team and working with the designers with the placement and the lighting. We have an internal design team, we have internal lighting specialists, [but] with a project of this scale that’s where you bring in outside firms for help, to give you extra leverage, and this is a project of such scale you also want to bring in specialists who’ve done projects of this scale before. We have expertise on our staff, but this is a project that you only do once in a generation as an individual institution,” said Levine.
Once-Future Office offers expertise in wayfinding and signage strategy, and will be designing new signs for the galleries to help people navigate their way through the museum.
‘Think of them as experience designers,” said Mr. Levine, “We take for granted that the museum wayfinding experience is intuitive but it’s not – everyone loves the Great Gallery but when you walk into the Great Gallery if you’ve never been to the museum before, there are 3 doors, people don’t like to go out the same door they went in to, they go out another door, but they have no idea what galleries they have missed. So that’s what Once Future does, they help model visitor behavior and once we understand how visitors are using the space currently, we can figure out where we have opportunities to improve flow.
Finally, Studio Zewdeis, a landscape, urban design and public art practice, will be working on the museum’s Welles outdoor sculpture garden and the campus.
“How we can create a more integrated campus experience? How we can really transform our 37 acres into something that’s much more park-like,” said Levine, “This will not be delivered by 2027, so a lot of what they’re working on will be a longer-range plan; we’re still in design mode there. The care to our campus is going to be at the same level as the care to our internal galleries because they’re equally important to our community and to the visitor experience.”
TMA engaged in outreach activities to the community in preparation for Transformation 2027.
“We learned so much,” said Mr. Levine “Our audience, the number one thing that they want from TMA is to be challenged, they want to learn things that they didn’t know beforehand – which is quite incredible. Which we learned from focus groups that we did of a demographically representative cross section of Toledo – age, race, religion, political persuasion, gender. Our audience uses the museum as a place to expand their horizons – which is an incredible thing, where there aren’t that many spaces where people with different views can come together next to each other and engage in expanding horizons. We’ve also learned that our audience is changing dramatically – our average age of a visitor has dropped by almost 20 years over the past four years, and our visitation is more diverse than the Metropolitan Statistical Area. And against that backdrop our visitation has increased by almost 30 percent in the past four years. We are reaching more people more broadly, which is really exciting.”
TMA is currently coming up with a precise scope of work to be done and will then solicit bids from contractors to do the work. Levine also said TMA will fundraise from private sources to fund Transformation 2027.
“Change is hard for people, especially when people are used to something,” said Levine, “But it’s very important for people in our community to know, that the museum has changed a lot over the years and a lot of what we’re advocating is actually what was originally intended or much of it is true to the architectural history of this museum.”
Readers want to know…
By: Mark Jacobs
A Q&A with Adam Levine
Where and when is the cloister being moved?
Yes, the cloister is being moved, we have been talking about that publicly for almost a year.
It is not being moved to the current Wolf Gallery; it is being moved adjacent to Classic Court. Of course, the cloister was not originally in Toledo, Ohio, so it can be moved. We have been working with an architectural historian and conservator who has done lots of work with cloisters in the past as well as with our own internal conservation team and architectural team to make sure that we have a rigorous process for the move.
We, of course, refreshed the cloister a few years ago and that was one of a number of experiments that we did – and again, this is something that we spoke about very publicly – we have been making these modifications to the galleries to test different sorts of interpretation , different sorts of display, and the chronological approach of our reinstallation. That was one of the early tests that we undertook with the cloister very successfully. When we refreshed the cloister, there was overwhelming support and enthusiasm for the changes we made, putting more artwork on display, engaging the community, conserving the cloister, etc.
So this move is not to change the cloister and how we refreshed it–it is how it is going to be reconstituted. It is simply going to be moved to create a chronological installation and, the other thing I would say is – because I think this is really, really important – is the cloister was installed at the Toledo Museum of Art. It was opened to the public in 1933, and I don’t know your full history in Toledo, but you may recall there was a gallery that ran along the back of the building that was called the Gothic Gallery. So the cloister was actually put where it was to create a chronological display and then in the 1980s, the Canaday Gallery was put in because museums change and blockbuster exhibitions have become a lot more popular, and it cut off the cloister and it also introduced the series of moves that have fragmented the original intention of the chronological display. So the Museum has been around for 125 years and change is hard and people get used to the things that they are used to
Is the Canaday Gallery remaining in place?
So the Levis Galleries, which have become our primary temporary exhibition space, until my predecessor redid those galleries, of the 18th and 19th century European painting galleries, so our primary exhibition space isn’t the Canaday Gallery.
So last year the TMA was the only museum in the world identified as having two of the best five exhibitions by Apollo magazine – Marisol: A Retrospective and Ethiopia at the Crossroads. Neither of those were in the Canaday Gallery. So the temporary exhibition space, for a decade now, has not been Canaday. We still use it for exhibitions of a certain scale but the primary temporary exhibition space has been the Levis Galleries.
What can you tell us about the conservation lab?
So every single function that the museum has will remain, and there will be more display space for artwork than there is currently but many things are going to move to different locations and I think one of the things, the thing that I am trying to impress, is, I think our audience — as the changes have taken place one by one and not all at once — don’t realize how much has changed.
For example, the conservation lab was not something that was constructed when the TMA was built and most people wouldn’t know that we actually have three conservation labs at the TMA right now, because it is behind the scenes. We, over the past couple of years, have done a number of programs, including an exhibition in our conservation labs, which was wildly popular, so this goes to the point about community feedback. So as a function of community feedback about the Art of Conservation exhibition and the conservation lab that we put in Canaday, we will be moving the conservation lab into a larger space that is better equipped for conservation but will also be public facing, so every single thing we are doing is related to a blend of community feedback or historical developments at the Museum, or both.
What are the museum’s plans for its art storage needs?
This project is specifically about the galleries, and how we construct the galleries, art museums, generally speaking because we acquire, and continue to acquire, so we always have need for more art storage. The facility we are in is not growing, so we are looking for more art storage options, but that is not part of this project. If an opportunity arises over the next few years we may take advantage of it, but this project, with these architects, is focused on the gallery presentation.
This New Vision with new galleries, will this entail increased staffing? How will staffing be affected?
We are absolutely 100 percent committed to retaining our incredible staff throughout the entire process. Sometimes people can get afraid when there is construction that there will be staffing changes once things come off line during construction, but that is absolutely not the case.
I’ll remind you that we also kept everyone during COVID-19, even though we were closed for three months between March and June, so we are very much committed to our staff.
One of our objectives is to become an employer of choice. We take that very seriously, and as we are not increasing our footprint, we do not anticipate adding a lot of staff, but because we continue to grow to provide programming and services to our audience, I think you could expect normal growth, you can anticipate some added staffing. We are increasing the square footage for display, but we are not adding to our existing footprint of the building.
How is handicapped accessibility being dealt with at the museum?
We plan on putting an accessible entry in at grade (ground level) so people will be able to enter at the front of the museum without having to go up the steps .
We have hired a manager of access initiatives (and) we have committed to becoming the most accessible historic art museum in the United States so that is important. As part of this project we are focused on the galleries and access to the galleries and that includes across Monroe Street as we want people to experience the Glass Pavilion and the Edward Green Building. We need to provide for user access so we will put an entry at grade, which will greatly reduce the distance for those in wheelchairs to get to the Glass Pavilion.
What are the plans for additional bathrooms at the museum?
This project is about the gallery experience, which is about the display of artwork but also about the visitor experience. Right now there is one single person restroom. We will be putting new bathrooms on the main floor – both men’s and women’s rooms – so that will allow us to service our full audience and they will be located near the temporary exhibition space, so if you find yourself down in that end (the west end of the building near the current Levis and American Galleries) of the building you don’t have to walk all the way back.
Can you tell us the plans for the Glass Pavilion?
There are absolutely plans (and) they have to do with how we activate that space. There will be no structural modifications to the Glass Pavilion other than, when the building was first constructed there were cost overruns that prevented the Museum at the time from putting on the doors that the architects had designed. So as a result of that, the doors to the Glass Pavilion have degraded more quickly than expected, as have the awnings. There are some accessibility challenges due to this. Also, as the doors are not as designed, there is also not the same level of climate control in the Crystal Corridor, the main corridor at the Glass Pavilion.
So we are going to be putting in the originally intended doors and they will be automatic doors so we will basically be creating a vestibule around the footprint of the existing awning. There will be no other structural changes within the Glass Pavilion, There will be some infrastructure upgrades, but that is it.
How about the Swiss Room? Where did it go and will we see it again?
The Swiss Room has been down since 2016, We have done a substantial amount of research on the Swiss Room but we also have another period room, the Chateau de Chenailles, will be coming back as part of this reinstallation and it will be installed in a way that I think people are really going to love. It will be a more immersive experience than it was previously. That doesn’t mean technology, but it will be truer to the way you would have experienced the room in the Chateau. We do have plans for the Swiss Room but not as part of this project. The Swiss Room, while it is a beloved room, is not actually historic as what it purports to be. We have plans to have this cherished piece of Toledo history out. We have an idea where it might go to engage our audience and it is not going to be part of this project.
What about the sculpture garden?
The sculpture garden is an outdoor gallery, so we absolutely have plans for that, but when the sculpture garden went in, we commissioned a landscaping plan and we never implemented the landscaping plan fully. That landscaping plan, it is hard to believe, is now 25 years old so we are reviewing the landscaping plan but we are not anticipating any changes being made before 2027.
How does the museum play to pay for all this?
Private philanthropy is how this will all be paid for. We can apply for funds that are made available through the public grant process, and we will do that if that is available, but we expect that this is going to be fully funded by private philanthropy
I know this is a lot of change and people are sort of resistant to change but this is totally consistent with what the museum has done over its 125 year history. This is not the first time that the galleries have been rearranged wholesale, this is something that happens regularly at museums across the world whether we are talking about the Museum of Modern art in New York or the Louvre in Abu Dhabi and everything in between and this is something our community should really be excited for but it is something that is really going to distinguish the museum across on the national and international stage. We’re going to serve our region just as we ever have but to expand our reach like we once had in the ‘60s ‘70s and ‘80s under Otto Wittmann and Roger Mandle’s tenures.
