Herzog & de Meuron to Design New Memphis Brooks Museum in $150M Project

Herzog & de Meuron, in collaboration with Memphis-based design collective Archimania, has unveiled plans for a new 10,000-square-meter Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, replacing the current Beaux-Arts building. The $150 million project, set to open in 2026, will be built on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, occupying an entire city block and requiring demolition of a former fire station. The museum's main structure will be clad in terracotta, with a smaller glass core housing the atrium and bookshop. All exhibition spaces will be on a single level, organized around a wooden courtyard for outdoor events. The new museum is part of a larger public-private urban revitalization plan connecting the riverfront to downtown Memphis. In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, the museum announced upcoming acquisitions of works by Black artists including Sanford Biggers, Rick Lowe, and Vanessa German. The current museum, founded in 1916, holds over 10,000 works spanning 5,000 years of art history, with strengths in Italian Renaissance, British portraiture, American painting, decorative arts, contemporary art, and African art. The original 1913 Beaux-Arts building was designed by James Gamble Rogers and donated by the widow of Samuel Hamilton Brooks; a cylindrical wing was added in 1955 by Everett Woods.