Washington, D.C.’s Folger Shakespeare Library has set an opening date following a three-year $80 million renovation led by KieranTimberlake.

November 17th will mark the public reopening of the collecting institution, which was founded in 1932 by Standard Oil executive Henry Clay Folger. The project seeks to revamp the library’s aging Capitol Hill facilities while constructing a new, 12,000-square-foot underground wing that will supplement the overhauled original Paul Cret design with two large exhibition spaces, a learning lab, and a new gift store.

Landscaping design by OLIN will complete the program with a set of surrounding gardens to the site’s east and west orientations. Native plants and vegetation inspired by the bard’s long oeuvre welcome visitors into the revamped existing space, which now features the learning lab, a set of new study rooms, and exhibition designs by Studio Joseph and Studio A.

Retained bas-reliefs have been placed at a lower elevation on the facade for public viewing, added to by a trio of public art commissions from Rita Dove, Anke Neuman, and Fred Wilson.

"What we’re doing with this work is to make it anew for a new time and a new age, so that it can go forward. It is a living memorial to Shakespeare, with all the complexity that comes with those ideas of memory — which we all tend to view as stable, but it is not — and life," KieranTimberlake Partner Stephen Kieran said in September. 

"We need to use Shakespeare, not so much as a monument, but a doorway that many more people can walk through," he added finally, speaking of the project's ambition to attract a new audience. "So that’s the journey, and we want people to walk with us. I do think there are more doorways to walk through, and I’m really looking forward to the day when we all get to walk through the doors in the Folger building with thanks and hopefulness."

The project is made possible in part thanks to a $51.5 million fundraising campaign put on by the library. More details about the renovation, including additional project images, can be found here.