An opening date has been set for the restored Buffalo AKG Art Museum following the announcement of the additional $20 million in funding to complete the three-year OMA and Cooper Robertson-led project. 

Since Archinect's reporting of the museum's design was shared back in June 2018, the formerly named Albright-Knox Art Gallery will officially open its doors on May 25, 2023. New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed off on the remaining monies made necessary by pandemic-related overruns to what she called a “transformative project that will provide a significant boost to Buffalo’s future.”

When it opens, visitors will be enthralled by Shohei Shigematsu’s glass curtain design for the new Jeffrey E. Gundlach building that connects via a transparent pedestrian bridge to the refurbished 117-year-old Elisabeth Wilmers Building, designed in the neoclassical style by influential local architect E.B. Green.

A new site-specific installation from Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann’s Studio Other Spaces venture completes the previously inaccessible open-air "Town Square" courtyard formed by the Gordan Bunshaft-designed Seymour H. Knox Building. Its remade interior includes a new restaurant, a 2,000-square-foot gallery, five classroom spaces, and a 350-seat auditorium. The museum has said new Knox Building will be offered to the public free of charge.

Finally, the project will add a projected $47 million in annual revenue provided by an expected increase in visitors of up to 205,000 a year. That figure is also representative of the institution's nearly doubled footprint needed to house a renowned and constantly growing collection – 15% of which has never been displayed – which recently expanded with new significant acquisitions from Jeffrey Gibson, Simone Leigh, Arthur Jafa, Nick Cave, and a host of other blue chip contemporary artists. 

“As America’s first museum of modern and contemporary art, the Buffalo AKG is known for taking risks while exhibiting and acquiring the work of emerging and underrecognized artists,” Chief Curator Cathleen Chaffee, said at the end of a press release. “The vastly expanded museum will provide, for the first time in our history, enough space to celebrate the artists in our extraordinary modern collection while also honoring new works that speak to contemporary experiences."