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Ringling Museum Gets $76 Million Makeover

Renovations and new construction double size of museum.

Meaghan O'Neill -- Interior Design, 1/30/2007 12:00:00 AM

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida has always been a wonderful spectacle. But with its new renovations and expansion, it’s got more going on than a three-ring circus. Spending $43 million in new construction, the museum began opening a series of buildings last year. Led by architect Yann Weymouth, director of design for HOK Florida, the facility was developed according to the original master plan from the 1930s.

“We did not want to impose our own pre-ordained ideas,” says Weymouth, who also worked on expansions at the Louvre in Paris and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Built in the style of an Italianate Renaissance Villa, the museum centers around a courtyard that is arcaded on three sides by loggias. The new design extends these, adding 30,000 square feet. Total gallery space now comes to 122,560. While the new exteriors nod to tradition, interiors are built to suit the modern visitor, and the expanded galleries allow for thousands of pieces to be displayed that were previously in storage.

Located on a 66-acre estate, the Ringling Museum of Art was established in 1927 as the legacy of circus legend John Ringling and his wife, Mable. Recognized as the official State Art Museum of Florida, it is housed in the Cà d'Zan (or “House of John”), a Venetian-Gothic waterfront mansion that was restored for $15-million. It houses masterworks of the Ringling collection, which include European and American paintings, Cypriot antiquities, and Asian contemporary art. It also includes the Circus Museum, which displays costumes, wagons, performance equipment, and other artifacts. The estate also features Mable Ringling’s Rose Garden, completed in 1913, and beautifully landscaped grounds overlooking Sarasota Bay.

The $76 million master plan unfolded in two phases beginning in 2002, first restoring the existing buildings and grounds then adding the new facilities. In January 2006, the new Tibbals Learning Center doubled the size of the Circus Museum. The new Visitors Pavilion, featuring the fully-restored Asolo Theatre, opened next. This past fall, a new state-of-the-art Conservation/Education Building was completed, including a 65,000-volume library, archives, and a state-of-the-art conservation laboratory. The master plan culminates on February 3, when the Arthur F. and Ulla R. Searing Wing opens.

The Ringling Museum marks the first completed project in a series of four new Florida museums to be designed by Weymouth and HOK. The other projects include the Salvador Dali Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, both in St. Petersburg, and the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum in Miami.