New Spaces include Classrooms, Commons, Works-on-Paper Study Area

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CINCINNATI — December 5, 2024 — The Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) is proud to open its renovated, nearly 14,000 square-foot ground level. Designed with accessibility at the forefront, the area allows the museum to strengthen its service to school groups, outside researchers, community organizations, event planners, daily visitors and staff.

Incorporating the natural beauty and light of Eden Park, the renovated level offers new rooms, resources and amenities, including:

• The Marek-Weaver Family Commons: An area that will welcome every K–12 and university group that visits the museum, this large, flexible meeting and event space seats up to 144 people and features a 434” video wall.
• The Carol and Bill Eckerle Classroom and the Koetters Family Classroom: Connected by a moveable wall, the classrooms will serve summer campers and learners of all ages. They sit 20 and 16 people, respectively.
• The Carl M. Jacobs Study Center, home to the Fifth Third Study Room: The state-of-the-art facility will allow staff and, in the future, outside researchers to study CAM’s collection of more than 30,000 works on paper.
• Updated and new visitor entrances: The DeWitt Entrance continues to face Eden Park but has moved to the museum’s original central axis point. In addition, another, new entrance to the ground level faces CAM’s side parking lot.
• Better connection between floors: A light-filled, centrally located new staircase connects the ground level to the first-floor galleries. With this addition, CAM’s contiguous public spaces expand from three levels to four. Visitors will encounter the new staircase upon arriving through the DeWitt Entrance.
• Relocated and expanded Castellini Foundation Room: Equipped with a dressing area, makeup mirrors and other amenities, the space serves as a green room for the adjacent Fath Auditorium and will serve as a dressing room for other events, including rentals (i.e., weddings).
• Visitor accommodations: A suite of new bathrooms and a designated quiet room, where visitors can relax and recharge, serve the renovated areas.
• “Behind-the-scenes” improvements: These include a nearby catering room for CAM’s special events team, A/V upgrades in the Fath Auditorium, new studios and offices in the Jacobs Center, enhanced installation and registration offices, new air handling systems and a meeting room for museum volunteers.

“The new amenities for our visitors and public represent the central work of an art museum: connecting communities and inspiring people through the power of art,” shares Cameron Kitchin, Louis and Louise Dieterle Nippert Director.

Of note, CAM can better serve school field trips with a new space for lunch in the Marek-Weaver Family Commons, widening the timeframe for student visits (which were previously restricted to 9–11 a.m.). The spaces also will serve several of the museum’s own public programs. Ultimately, CAM will add more hands-on art classes for people of all ages, work with more after-school programs and better fulfill its initiative with Cincinnati Public Schools to provide museum tours and art-making experiences for fourth-grade students across the district.

The ground level’s enhancements will also allow external organizations to reserve meeting space outside of museum operating hours, which CAM previously could not accommodate.

These renovations help fulfill all three priority investment areas of the museum’s most recent strategic plan:

• enhanced visitor experience and scholarship,
• expanded community impact and outreach, and
• increased organizational capacity.

The ground-level renovations were among the projects that CAM’s A New View campaign made possible. The campaign surpassed its $65 million fundraising goal in the fall of 2022.

Cincinnati Art Museum engaged emersion DESIGN and Triversity Construction for the design and construction work, respectively. The ground level was under construction for a little more than one year.

About the Cincinnati Art Museum

The Cincinnati Art Museum features a diverse, encyclopedic art collection of more than 73,000 works spanning 6,000 years. In addition to displaying its own broad collection, the museum conducts extensive research and creates and organizes several exhibitions each year. It also hosts national and international traveling exhibitions. Through these critical projects and art-related programs, activities, and special events, the museum contributes to a more vibrant Cincinnati by inspiring its people and connecting its communities.

The Cincinnati Art Museum is supported by the generosity of individuals and businesses that give annually to ArtsWave. The Ohio Arts Council helps fund the Cincinnati Art Museum with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence, and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans. The Cincinnati Art Museum gratefully acknowledges operating support from the City of Cincinnati, as well as its members. Free general admission to the Cincinnati Art Museum is made possible by a gift from the Rosenthal Family Foundation. Exhibition pricing may vary. Generous support for the museum’s extended Thursday hours is provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program. Parking at the Cincinnati Art Museum is free. More information is available at cincinnatiartmuseum.org.

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