The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) has announced it has hired David Chipperfield Architects to create a master plan for its expansion ambitions, following “a thorough and inspiring search.”

The design practice will develop prospective design solutions to enhance the museum’s visitor experience and to expand public access to the museum as a community resource.

They will consider how to improve visitor circulation, create new public gathering spaces, add more art storage, update Mia’s restaurants and refresh its auditorium.

“We’re thrilled to work with David Chipperfield,” said Kaywin Feldman, president of the museum. “Mia has seen tremendous growth in recent years, with repeated record-setting visitor numbers.

"Our growing collections, innovative exhibitions, and accessible public programs have fueled this growth, and we want to ensure we have the facilities needed to provide inspiring visitor experiences as we embrace an ever-broadening, diverse audience. We are confident that David Chipperfield Architects’ impressive track record and clear understanding of our museum’s needs will help us achieve this goal.”

The architects are no strangers to large-scale museum projects, having worked on the St. Louis Art Museum, the Neues Museum in Berlin, The Royal Academy of Arts in London, Museo Jumex in Mexico City, and the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center in Alaska.

Cultural projects in the pipeline include the Nobel Center in Stockholm, the West Bund Art Museum in Shanghai, the Naqa Site Museum in Sudan, the Mughal Museum in Agra, and the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History.

In a recent interview with CLADglobal, studio founder David Chipperfield argued that public spaces and public realm must be well designed, “because they represent the things that connect us.”

“Contemporary society tends to celebrate and exaggerate individualism, but we are resilient creatures that want to gather together,” he said. “Why do we go to restaurants and pay a fortune for something that we could have cooked at home, to sit in a room with 50 other people we never speak to? It’s our desire to be part of something bigger; to be part of society.”

“We want to create buildings with a certain architectural integrity, and we want to give those buildings meaning by being purposeful,” he added.

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