{"id":305569,"date":"2025-11-21T17:45:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/305569\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T17:45:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:45:16","slug":"portland-art-museums-rothko-pavilion-unifies-old-and-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/305569\/","title":{"rendered":"Portland Art Museum\u2019s Rothko Pavilion unifies old and new"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"People<\/p>\n

People walk through a new gallery space at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Ore., Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. The museum’s new $111 million addition connects the former Masonic Temple built in 1927 and the 1932 original museum complex by Pietro Belluschi.<\/p>\n

Saskia Hatvany \/ OPB<\/p>\n

The Portland Art Museum opened its doors to the public Thursday afternoon to celebrate its new expansion \u2014 a $111 million project almost a decade in the making. <\/p>\n

Hundreds of visitors streamed through the glass doors of the museum\u2019s new entrance, which connects two historic masonry buildings that were once separated by a courtyard. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a project of a lifetime,\u201d said Philip Hamp, principal at Vinci Hamp Architects, one of the two architecture firms that worked on the project. \u201cI\u2019m really proud of this glass connection and how it unifies both buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mark Rothko Pavilion connects the 1932 original museum complex by Pietro Belluschi and the Mark Building, a former Masonic Temple built in 1927. Many of the floors of the original buildings did not align, sometimes by as much as a foot and a half, according to Hamp. <\/p>\n

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Hundreds gather for the opening ceremony of the new Mark Rothko Pavilion at the Portland Art Museum.<\/p>\n

Saskia Hatvany \/ OPB<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

People celebrate the opening of the new Mark Rothko Pavilion.<\/p>\n

Saskia Hatvany \/ OPB<\/p>\n

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Visitors stand on one of the terraces of the Pavilion that overlooks the adjacent Mark Building. <\/p>\n

Saskia Hatvany \/ OPB<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A pedestrian walks the bridge that connects the Mark Rothko Pavilion with the adjacent Mark Building.<\/p>\n

Saskia Hatvany \/ OPB<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A person visits a gallery space in the new Mark Rothko Pavilion.<\/p>\n

Saskia Hatvany \/ OPB<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A terrace provides visitors a place to rest and enjoy the view.<\/p>\n

Saskia Hatvany \/ OPB<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The renovation adds 100,000 square feet of new museum space, including new terraces and galleries, and floor-to-ceiling windows looking out to the city.<\/p>\n

Saskia Hatvany \/ OPB<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Visitors check out the new locker room facilities.<\/p>\n

Saskia Hatvany \/ OPB<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A new gallery space in the new Mark Rothko Pavilion.<\/p>\n

Saskia Hatvany \/ OPB<\/p>\n

\uf054<\/p>\n

The new pavilion is named after abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko<\/a>, who emigrated as a child from Dvinsk, then a part of Russia, to America. He was raised in Portland, attending Lincoln High School before making his way to New York to develop as an artist. He was a major player in founding the abstract expressionist movement, becoming one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very well done, nice and light. Which is good because I think the old museum was lovely too but there were dark corners,\u201d said museum visitor Wendy Brown. \u201cSo far what we\u2019ve seen is very open and very light, more like what I think Portland is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian Ferriso, director of the Portland Art Museum, said that connecting the buildings has also made the museum more accessible and more visible from the outside. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always had a beautiful active museum, but our buildings, you don\u2019t really see into them, or you can\u2019t see out of them, but this allows that to happen,\u201d Ferriso said. <\/p>\n

After almost 20 years at the helm, and leading the museum through a multi-million dollar expansion, Ferriso\u2019s tenure at the museum is ending. He will start as the new Eugene McDermott Director at the Dallas Museum of Art on December 1.<\/p>\n

The four-story addition includes a floating walkway, gallery spaces, new locker rooms, a gift shop and two outdoor terraces. The project was 98% privately funded and over 1,200 donors contributed funds. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just love that you can see the city from inside and it feel like you\u2019re in Portland when you\u2019re in here,\u201d said museum visitor Lily Doebler. \u201cIt\u2019s really well done.\u201d<\/p>\n

OPB\u2019s Executive Editor of Arts & Culture Jessica Martin contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People walk through a new gallery space at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Ore., Thursday, Nov. 20,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,158443],"class_list":{"0":"post-305569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-portland-art-museum-portland-art-culture-arts-and-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}