The Hammer Museum announced details of its upcoming expansion, which will increase exhibition space 60 percent by 2020, in a press release Thursday.
The proposed renovations, spearheaded by architect Michael Maltzan, began in September 2016 with remodeling the museum’s third floor galleries. Those galleries will reopen to the public Sunday with exhibitions featuring work by Jimmie Durham and Jean Debuffet.
Other upcoming changes will include a museum store and bookshop, spaces for public events and a classroom, according to the Los Angeles Times. Its new space will take up a full city block on Wilshire Boulevard.
UCLA officials announced the expansion plan in October 2015, when UCLA purchased Wilshire Boulevard’s Occidental Petroleum building for $92.5 million.
The UCLA administration will expand into the building’s top 11 floors. The Hammer Museum will take over the lower five floors, including the fourth and fifth floors of office space, according to the LA Times.
“After decades of growth, we are bursting at the seams and overdue for a physical upgrade,” said Hammer Museum director Ann Philbin in an email statement. “This transformation will help us provide more art for our audiences, more places to study, conserve and display our expanding collections, and more space to share our unparalleled exhibitions and programs.”
Maltzan, who was originally commissioned in 2000 to create a master plan for the museum, has previously been involved with Hammer Museum refurbishments including the development of the Billy Wilder Theater, the Lab, cafe and the John V. Tunney Bridge connecting the east and west sides of the building.