Miller Institute for Contemporary Art
Design Unveiled for Expanded Institute for Contemporary Art in Pittsburgh
Miller Institute for Contemporary Art to be Renamed ICA Pittsburgh
written by
Juliet Sorce, Caroline McKinley, Elyse Howell
Resnicow and Associates
In November 2023, Carnegie Mellon University unveiled the design for the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art’s new 29,000-square-foot home, prominently located in the new Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences at the crossroads of the university’s campus and the city's iconic arts and cultural institutions along Forbes Avenue in Pittsburgh. Designed by ZGF Architects, the new museum will nearly triple the Miller ICA’s current size, with galleries and public programming spaces that will foster cross-disciplinary inquiry and community engagement.
It was simultaneously announced that, upon its move, the Miller ICA will be renamed the Institute for Contemporary Art Pittsburgh (ICA Pittsburgh) in recognition of the critical role that it has played and continues to play in fostering artistic discourse throughout the city and the art world at large.
The ICA will continue operations under the name of Miller ICA while at its current facility in the Purnell Center for the Arts. Groundbreaking for the new building is expected in spring 2024, with a public opening planned for 2027.
An exhibition space within the new museum will be named “The Miller Gallery” in acknowledgment of Regina and Marlin Miller, whose foundational support helped launch the institution. Since first opening to the public in 2000, ICA has advanced the work of innovative artists — including Dara Birnbaum, Jacolby Satterwhite and Andrea Zittel, among many others. Its experimental and academically rigorous exhibitions and programs foreground global trends and uplift the work of Pittsburgh creatives, ranging from major thematic surveys, such as Impossible Music curated by Candice Hopkins and Raven Chacon with Stavia Grimani, to shows spotlighting the work of students and emergent practitioners. The new ICA Pittsburgh builds on this legacy and is supported by a lead gift of $15 million from the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation and Henry L. Hillman Foundation, two organizations dedicated to advancing civic and cultural leadership and infrastructure throughout the City of Pittsburgh.
“With a welcoming design and artist-focused mission, ICA Pittsburgh will serve as an advocate for new ideas and an aggregator of communities, providing new lines of inquiry about the most pressing issues of our time through the lens of contemporary art.”
Elizabeth Chodos
Director, Miller Institute for Contemporary Art
“Our new name reflects the institutional growth and impact that the museum has had over the course of the past two decades, recognizing both the critical links we have to our audiences throughout the City of Pittsburgh, as well as the role we play on a national and international level as a nimble art institute,” said Chodos.
In its new home, the ICA will be able to expand its programmatic offerings in dialogue with the Carnegie Museum of Art that it will directly neighbor, and better serve its growing audiences, including scholars, students and faculty, as well as visitors from throughout the region and country. Embracing unprecedented possibilities for interdisciplinary learning, the ICA Pittsburgh will be a key part of CMU’s new Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences — a dynamic building complex conceived to foster collaboration across the arts, sciences and technology, and that will house classrooms, laboratories and faculty offices for departments from CMU’s Mellon College of Science and School of Computer Science, in addition to the new ICA.
"As the cultural and civic anchor of the Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences, ICA Pittsburgh creates an important new gateway to the university campus."
Mary Ellen Poole
Stanley and Marcia Gumberg Dean, College of Fine Arts
“At the same time, it will amplify and extend the historic cultural offerings of Forbes Avenue, which include the Carnegie Museums and Carnegie Library, providing a continuum of cultural and artistic experiences for our university community and the public alike,” said Poole.
featuring the following:
renderings courtesy of ZGF Architects
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Design Unveiled for Expanded Institute for Contemporary Art in Pittsburgh (full story)
