In front of you spreads 94,000 square feet of galleries, one of the largest university art museums in the United States, home to the University of Michigan's collection. This site began as Alumni Memorial Hall, built in 1909 as a war memorial for the university’s fallen alumni from the Civil War, and it originally housed the university’s Alumni office alongside its growing art collection. You can think about stewardship here: Jean Paul Slusser was the museum’s first director, serving from 1946 (first as acting director, becoming director in 1947) until his retirement in 1957.
The university’s collection spans more than 150 years of history and contains over 20,000 works of art across cultures, eras, and media. Admission is free, though a $10 donation is suggested. In the spring of 2009 the museum reopened after a major $41.9 million expansion and renovation designed by Brad Cloepfil and Allied Works Architecture that more than doubled the size of the museum.
Today the facility comprises the renovated 41,000-square-foot Alumni Memorial Hall and the new 53,000-square-foot Maxine and Stuart Frankel and the Frankel Family Wing, and the museum’s current director is Christina Olsen. Together, the renovated Alumni Memorial Hall of 1909 and the Frankel Family Wing make up 94,000 square feet of museum.