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    Great Day for MFAH

    'Now the real fun time starts' after MFAH breaks ground on new building

    Clifford Pugh
    Jun 1, 2017 | 8:00 am

    After years of planning, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston broke ground Wednesday on a stark new 165,000-square-foot building for modern and contemporary art as the centerpiece of its $450 million expansion.

    "Now the real fun time starts," MFAH board chairman Rich Kinder told a crowd of dignitaries under a large tent on the parking lot formerly shared by the museum and the First Presbyterian Church at the corner of Bissonnet and Main streets.

    The building, whose large footprint was outlined in orange plastic safety netting on the paved lot (with "apologies to Christo" MFAH director Gary Tinterow quipped, referring to the artist known for wrapping famous structures), will be named for Kinder and his wife, Nancy. It is scheduled to open in late 2019.

    The Kinders, along with Tinterow, MFAH board vice-chair Anne Duncan, and architects Steven Holl and Chris McVoy, gamely posed for photos while each held a silver shovel over a small plot of dirt that had been carved into the paved lot.

    Tinterow saluted 150 individuals, couples, foundations and corporations who have thus far donated $390 million for the project, which also includes the new Glassell School of Art, currently under construction adjacent to the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, and the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Conservation Center, a one-story, steel-and-glass structure that will be set atop a museum garage. Rich Kinder specifically thanked 15 donors who have given $3 million or more.

    "We're only $60 million short of our goal, but with your help I know we will achieve it," Tinterow said.

    When completed, the Kinder Building, clad in translucent glass so that it glows when lit from within at night, will house 54,000 square feet of gallery space for exhibitions, a 200-seat theater, a café, a restaurant overlooking the sculpture garden, and an underground parking garage. Pedestrian tunnels will connect the Kinder Building to the existing Caroline Wiess Law Building and the new 80,000-square-foot Glassell School on the 14-acre campus, named for Susan and Fayez S. Sarofim.

    "Now we're really making it an urban campus," said Holl, a renowned architect whose New York-based firm, Steven Holl Architects, designed the Kinder Building as well as the Glassell School, which is scheduled to open in January 2018.

    "It's the first groundbreaking I've ever been to in 40 years of trying to be an architect where the first third of the building is on the second floor," Holl said, looking over at the nearly Glassell School, which currently looks a bit like an unfinished erector set with its unusual ski-slope-like roof that will serve as a big outdoor gathering space when completed.

    Officials set a high mark for the Kinder Building once it is complete. Tinterow predicted it will be an "an instant landmark" while Rich Kinder called the expansion of the museum's campus "transformational." And Holl quoted Winston Churchill, who once said, "First we shape our buildings, and then they shape us."

    Interior view of the Kinder building with the lobby/forum gallery.

    Interior view of Museum of Fine Arts Houston Nancy and Rich Kinder Building
      
    Courtesy of Steven Holl Architects
    Interior view of the Kinder building with the lobby/forum gallery.
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    A Roman Holiday (Season)

    All roads lead to Houston museum's blockbuster exhibit of Imperial Rome

    Tarra Gaines
    Jun 11, 2025 | 3:15 pm
    ​The Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents "Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times"
    Photo courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
    The Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents "Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times" ("Statue of Trajan" Minturno, Italy, 2nd century, marble, National Archaeological Museum, Naples)

    Houston's holiday season will have a distinctly Roman feeling this year, as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is bringing the glory of the Gladiator era to Texas. On November 2, 2025 through January 25, 2026 the MFAH presents the monumental new exhibition “Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times.”

    Featuring 160 objects of antiquity, including marble sculptures, frescoes, mosaics, delicate glass vessels, and exquisite bronze artifacts, the exhibition will transport visitors back in time to the Roman Empire during a flowering of art and architecture. The MFAH partnered with the Saint Louis Art Museum to organize the exhibition, which will showcase many pieces that have never been on view in the U.S.

    While Emperor Trajan might not be the most famous — or in some cases, most infamous — of the Roman emperors, he ruled between 98 and 117 C.E. during the empire’s height and was the second of the so-called “Five Good Emperors” of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty. He was also the first emperor born outside of present-day Italy, in what is now Andalusia, Spain. During his reign, he granted citizenship and rights to some peoples from conquered lands. The exhibition will explore how this time period expanded what it meant to be a Roman and how art reflected Rome’s power and promoted the empire’s values and ideals.

    \u200bThe Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents "Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times"
      

    Photo courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

    The Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents "Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times" ("Statue of Trajan" Minturno, Italy, 2nd century, marble, National Archaeological Museum, Naples)

    From statues of prominent men and women of the era, including Trajan, to vivid frescoes and furnishing from the villas of Pompeii, the objects in the exhibition will tell fascinating cultural and political stories of life in imperial Rome. To add context to the artworks and objects of antiquity, the MFAH will recreate a section of Trajan’s Column, which was a towering pillar with a spiraling narrative frieze, one of the few monumental sculptures to have survived the fall of Rome.

    “Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times” brings such a wealth of objects to Houston thanks to unprecedented loans from the renowned antiquities collections of Italian museums including Museo Nazionale Romano, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, the Parco Archeologico di Ostia, and the Musei Vaticani. It would would likely take months of travel across Italy to see this much art.

    “This is truly a rare opportunity for U.S. audiences to experience spectacular objects from this glorious era of the Roman Empire,” said Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH, in a statement. “We are enormously grateful to our colleagues in Rome, Naples, and Vatican City for lending these treasures to us and broadening the appreciation of Italy’s cultural heritage.”

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