Adding nearly 100,000 square feet, PAM’s expansion and renovation project connects the Museum’s historic buildings for increased accessibility and creates new galleries to exhibit reinstalled permanent collection.
Portland Art Museum (PAM) announced today that its expanded and renovated campus, which will completely transform the existing Museum and create a vital “cultural commons” in the heart of downtown Portland, will open to the public on November 20, 2025. The Museum will host a free four-day celebration for the community with festivities inside and outside the museum, and meaningful opportunities to connect with and be inspired by art.
Designed in partnership by Portland’s Hennebery Eddy Architects and Chicago-based Vinci Hamp Architects, the expansion project is one of the most significant capital investments in the arts in the history of Oregon. It will add nearly 100,000 square feet of new or upgraded public and gallery space, providing increased access to exhibitions and programs, updated amenities that address the needs of more diverse audiences, and new ways to experience PAM’s robust collection. The expanded and renovated galleries will feature a complete reinstallation of the Museum’s wide-ranging collection, highlighting nearly 300 major new acquisitions including works by Jeffrey Gibson, Simone Leigh, and Ugo Rondinone, alongside works that have rarely or never before been on view. The reimagined Museum will also house a newly dedicated gallery space for exhibition programming focused on Black art and experiences, showcasing works, exhibitions, and performances by local, regional, and global emerging and established Black artists.
“The Museum’s transformed campus is a result of a decades-long vision to better serve our community as the cornerstone of Portland’s downtown cultural district,” said Brian Ferriso, Director of the Portland Art Museum. “As one of the oldest art museums in the country, and the only major art museum between Seattle and San Francisco, PAM is an essential cultural lifeline for our region. The new PAM will create a dynamic destination for the arts, reinvigorating our city and offering expanded opportunities to engage audiences with art from around Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, and the world. We can’t wait for everyone to experience the new PAM this November.”
In an effort to bring elements of the completed campus to the public as soon as possible, select newly reinstalled collection galleries will reopen in PAM’s landmark 1932 Main Building prior to the fall, and PAM’s new café and store will open to the community in late August. Additionally, the Museum will continue its special exhibition programming, with Global Icons, Local Spotlight: Contemporary Art from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer, opening September 6, 2025, and Yoshida Chizuko, opening September 27, 2025. Global Icons, Local Spotlight highlights works by celebrated artists of the 20th century such as Louise Bourgeois and Jasper Johns, and contemporary luminaries including Nick Cave and Mickalene Thomas from the collection of Jordan Schnitzer, one of Oregon’s foremost art collectors and the son of philanthropist and longtime PAM supporter Arlene Schnitzer. Yoshida Chizuko will present the first major retrospective to focus on the groundbreaking 20th-century painter and printmaker Yoshida Chizuko (1924–2017), a pioneering woman modernist from Japan. With recent acquisitions drawn from PAM’s collection, the exhibition will feature several works by the oft-overlooked artist that have never been exhibited.
PAM’s transformation centers on the creation of the 21,881-square-foot Mark Rothko Pavilion, which provides a new transparent, welcoming “front door” to the museum. The glass Pavilion connects the Museum’s two historic buildings—the landmark 1932 Main Building to the south, designed by Pietro Belluschi, and the Mark Building to the north, a former Masonic Temple designed by Frederick Fritsch in 1924—creating streamlined circulation across all four floors of gallery space. Upon the project’s unveiling, visitors will experience new, more intuitive pathways to encounter art throughout the entirely reimagined permanent galleries.
PAM’s collection & reinstalled galleries
PAM’s far-ranging collection encompasses Northwest art, Native American art, Asian art, European and American art, prints and drawings, photography, and modern and contemporary art. Over the past two decades, the Museum has significantly expanded its collection to add works by historically underrepresented artists from across the region and the broader U.S., with an emphasis on acquiring works by women, Native American, and Black artists, as well as by other artists of color. New acquisitions to the collection will be on view both in PAM’s galleries and in newly created outdoor public spaces, providing opportunities for the entire Portland community to engage with and experience art.
The reinstalled galleries will adopt a new approach to exhibiting PAM’s collections, shifting from traditional chronological and geography-based presentations to thematic displays that emphasize place, community, and identity, and tell stories that speak to the interests of Oregon audiences and foster critical dialogue. Several collection galleries will reflect a more collaborative, cross-departmental approach to curation that allows visitors to discover new interpretations of and unexpected connections between the works on view.
PAM’s new campus
The pavilion is named in honor of Mark Rothko (1903–1970), who spent his childhood in Portland after his family emigrated from Latvia and who took classes at the Museum’s art school, reflecting a unique partnership between PAM and the Rothko family. Further underscoring this connection, when it reopens the Museum will present a focused exhibition of the late artist’s work in the Museum’s Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art, featuring works on loan from the Rothko family’s unparalleled collection, the National Gallery of Art, and private collectors.
The Rothko Pavilion is clad in custom, white-fritted and semi-transparent glass, offering glimpses of the art and activity within during the day, and acting as a glowing beacon for the arts downtown when illuminated at night. The Pavilion’s design incorporates an open-air passageway through the building connecting the museum’s East and West Entry Plazas to Portland’s South Park Blocks. The sheltered passageway provides unique views into the lobby and galleries for pedestrians and bicyclists who pass by.
The transformed campus also creates areas for the community to rest, reflect, and gather—inside the museum, on second and fourth-floor terraces overlooking the street and parks below, and in an outdoor public plaza on the west side of the new Pavilion. A new café and expanded store will also be accessible from the West Plaza, providing another public entry point.
Investing in PAM’s future
The Connection Campaign, PAM’s fundraising campaign to expand its campus and increase the Museum’s endowment, has raised 90 percent of its $141 million goal, 98 percent of which is privately funded. The campaign includes $111 million in construction costs and $30 million to grow the Museum’s endowment, ensuring that it remains a civic anchor for generations to come. More than 600 donors have expressed their support through contributions to the campaign as of March 2025, with gifts ranging in size from $1,000 to over $13 million. Fundraising is ongoing, with the campaign recently having entered its public phase. The Museum is welcoming gifts from donors at all levels.
Learn more and join in supporting this once-in-a-generation project.
