A renovation of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) is intended to reintroduce the museum to a wider public, just when the project’s designers, the Los Angeles firm of Johnston Marklee, will be reintroducing themselves as artistic curators of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, set to open a few months after the renovation’s completion. Now under construction, the $16 million project will convert 12,000 square feet of interior space into free and publicly accessible cultural and social venues. It’s scheduled to be complete this June, in time for the museum’s 50th anniversary.
The renovation will reshuffle three programmatic elements of the building, designed by Josef Paul Kleihues in 1996. (The museum, when established in 1967, first occupied a space on East Ontario Street, four blocks south.) The plan will install a new groundfloor restaurant designed by Johnston Marklee and dominated by an immersive art installation by British painter Chris Ofili. On the second floor, the emerging Mexico City–based practice Pedro y Juana will create a flexible art and social space called “the commons.” Finally, the third floor will host new education and meeting spaces.
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