HOUSTON – The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is welcoming visitors to the newly completed Nancy and Rich Kinder building after completion of the decade-long campus expansion.
Officials with the museum said general admission to MFAH gallery buildings will be free this weekend with free access to the new Kinder building extended through Wednesday, Nov. 25.
The new Kinder building is 237,000 square feet and dedicated to the museum’s “outstanding and fast-growing international collections of modern and contemporary art,” officials said.
Steven Holl, Principal and Lead Designer of Steven Holl Architects, designed the building which is named after Richard D. Kinder, Chairman of the MFAH Board of Trustees, and his wife, Nancy Kinder.
This is the third building of the museum’s Susan and Fayez S. Sarofim Campus which is a cultural landmark for Houston.
“A century after the Museum’s founding by a group of local art lovers, it is thrilling to place the finishing touches on the Susan and Fayez S. Sarofim Campus,” said MFAH chairperson Gary Tinterow.
“Thanks to hundreds of generous donors, led by the Sarofims and Nancy and Rich Kinder, we have been able to construct magnificent new facilities for the display of the art of the preceding century and of our time, and to provide new plazas and gardens that will make the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston the cultural hub of the region,” Tinterow said.
Officials with the museum said the original campaign goal for the redevelopment project was $450 million, a combination of capital and endowment goals. “We’ve since exceeded that and are at $476 million for fundraising. The final cost of the campus project was $385 million.”
According to museum officials, the redevelopment of the Sarofim campus and off-site storage facility is the largest cultural project in North America, with 650,000 square feet of totally new construction.
San Antonio-based firm Lake|Flato Architects designed the new Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation Center for Conservation which opened on the campus in 2018.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story stated that the cost to complete the project was $450 million.