Memphis Art Museum, Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, Readies for December 2026 Opening
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the oldest and largest art museum in Tennessee and one of the largest institutions of its kind in the American South, has shared new details of its future downtown home. When the 123,500-square-foot “cultural campus” at Union Avenue and Front Street opens to the public in December of this year, the Brooks, established in 1916 at Overton Park in Midtown Memphis, will formally rebrand as Memphis Art Museum.
The Memphis Art Museum, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, doubles the institution’s existing gallery space and dramatically increases—by 600 percent—the amount of art-filled, free-admission community space. These spaces include a 10,000-square-foot courtyard at street level, an outdoor amphitheater, mezzanine-level theater, and a 50,000-square-foot rooftop sculpture garden—“an art park in the sky”—complete with an event pavilion. An inviting entrance lobby-cum-public living room serves a greater civic purpose.