Menil to break ground Friday on new drawing institute

By Molly Glentzer Published 1:00 pm CDT, Thursday, March 26, 2015

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An aerial view of the Menil Collection campus as it will look from the southeast. Construction begins in April on the extension of West Main Street, and the Menil Drawing Institute (foreground) is due to be completed in 2017. Photo: Johnston Marklee

Photo: Johnston Marklee Image 1 of 17 An aerial view of the Menil Collection campus as it will look from the southeast. Construction begins in April on the extension of West Main Street, and the Menil Drawing Institute (foreground) is due to be ... more

The Menil Collection will break ground Friday on the Menil Drawing Institute, the first new art building in 20 years on the idyllic 10-block Montrose campus.

It will be the first free-standing facility in the United States built for the conservation, study, exhibition and storage of works on paper, an increasingly appreciated medium that can be the starting point for many kinds of art-making.

The institute is the highlight of a $40 million project that includes a new park, an extension of West Main Street and a high-efficiency energy facility to serve all of the Menil's exhibition buildings. It will be built southeast of the main museum building on property where some of the Menil-owned Richmont Square Apartments were recently demolished.

Read our complete report this afternoon on the building already being described as a masterpiece at HoustonChronicle.com.