The University of Notre Dame’s new Raclin Murphy Museum of Art from Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) has announced an opening date of December 1st, completing the first phase of a multi-year plan that will advance research and foundational arts education offerings for students in South Bend, Indiana.

The design consists of a 70,000-square-foot neoclassical style building to house the university’s 31,000 object collection. A rectangular layout of 23 separate gallery spaces centers around a circular multi-story atrium and sculpture court, with the exhibitions of different world cultures stitched together into one “dialogue” connecting to an art historical timeline that totals approximately 4,000 years.

Notre Dame is, similar to Brown University, pursuing the project in the interests of re-affirming the role of arts education in its undergraduate curricula. The school says the new museum brings it on par with Yale, Stanford, and other comparable institutions in terms of its ability to showcase what is considered to be one of the largest American college or university collections at present. 

Installations from Maya Lin, Kiki Smith, and Jenny Holzer were recently announced ahead of its opening. The 43-year-old former Snite Museum of Art was also reused as the new Snite Research Center in the Visual Arts. Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates were also included on the project to design a landscaped connection to their nine-acre previous Charles B. Hayes Family Sculpture Park design next door.

Notre Dame Provost John T. McGreevy says: “The stunning exhibition spaces and the luminous works of art they contain will captivate us with their beauty, spark important conversations in the classroom and beyond and enable us to think in new ways about our past, present and future. Located at the entrance to our storied campus, the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art will attract new visitors from across the country while continuing to enrich the lives of our community members, our students and our faculty through the transformative power of art.”

This is RAMSA’s latest contribution to a well-known portfolio of higher education projects that includes Yale’s new Pauli Murray College & Benjamin Franklin College, the Spangler Center and restored Baker Library at Harvard Business School, and the campus plan for Colgate University, among many others. 

The second, 62,000-square-foot art study center phase of the Notre Dame project will be completed later to yield a total of 132,000-square-feet of additional spaces for research and instruction overall.