Rothko Chapel closes Monday for 8-month renovation

By Molly Glentzer Updated 8:17 am CST, Thursday, February 28, 2019

Houston's Rothko Chapel will undergo a major renovation that will close the internationally-famous art and spiritual site beginning Monday, March 4, through most of 2019. Photo: Courtesy Of The Rothko Chapel / Courtesy Of The Rothko Chapel

Photo: Courtesy Of The Rothko Chapel / Courtesy Of The Rothko Chapel Image 1 of 5

Houston's Rothko Chapel will undergo a major renovation that will close the internationally-famous art and spiritual site beginning Monday, March 4, through most of 2019.

If you have been thinking about visiting the Rothko Chapel soon, you’ll need to make it real soon.

Starting Monday, the landmark Houston art and spiritual site, which holds 14 monumental paintings by Mark Rothko, will close for a renovation project that will take all year to complete. Recommended Video

The Chapel will be open regular hours (10 a.m.-6 p.m.) on Thursdayand Sunday, March 3; with abbreviated hours Friday and Saturday, when the Rothko organization’s symposium “Toward a Better Future: Transforming the Climate Crisis” will occupy the space part of each day.

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Public viewing hours are 1-6 p.m. Friday and 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free.

The project will bring a reconfigured, more open entry space and a new central skylight designed to shed better light on the canvases. Across the street, work has begun on the site for a new welcome center and an energy house for the campus’ mechanical systems.

George Sexton of the lighting design firm George Sexton Associates, Stephen Cassell of Architecture Research Office and Christopher Rothko, the son of the artist and chair of the Chapel’s “Opening Spaces” capital campaign, will give a free talk with University of Houston art history professor Sandra Zalman about the building’s architecture at 6 p.m. April 8 at the UH Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design.