Clark Art Institute to open Stone Hill Center

The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown has announced that it will open its Stone Hill Center, just south of the museum’s two main buildings, on June 22. The two-story, 32,000-square-foot Tadao Ando-designed building will offer 2,500 square feet of galleries, the Williamstown Art Conservation Center and 1,000 square feet for classroom and meeting use. Surrounding grounds designed by Reed Hilderbrand Associates will be used to display sculpture.

The galleries will open with an exhibition of works by Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent from the museum’s collection.

The project is part of an ongoing transformation of the Clark. The museum is planning Clark@MassMoCA, 29,000 square feet of exhibition and storage space at Mass MoCA in North Adams, which it hopes to open in 2011. Also in the works are construction of a new exhibition, visitor and conference center with additional galleries at the Williamstown campus and renovation of the Clark’s 1955 building to create 40 percent more gallery space, which are scheduled to be completed in 2013.

Pictured from top to bottom: The Stone Hill Center seen from the north, the building’s courtyard and the Williamstown Art Conservation Center seen from the terrace.