Princeton University Art Museum opening delayed until Fall 2025

The opening of the new Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) has been delayed until Fall 2025, the University confirmed to The Daily Princetonian. An official announcement has yet to be released.

Construction began during the Summer of 2021, and the museum was once slated to open in Spring 2025. This in itself was a delay from the original construction timeline, which included plans for the project to be completed during 2024. Princeton University Facilities has also noted Fall 2024 as its completion date. Currently, the interactive campus map on the Campus Facilities website, which provides information on ongoing construction projects, has the end date for museum construction slated for Nov. 29, 2024.

Spanning three floors, PUAM will have a total square footage of 144,000 square feet, and be located in the center of up campus to the west of Prospect House.

With the opening of the new museum, campus will see the end of off-campus exhibitions at Art@Hulfish which is located in Palmer Square in early 2025. Hulfish is an extension of the art museum during construction, and began programming during Feb. 2022. The space’s current exhibit, “Under a Southern Star: Identity and Environment in Australian Photography,” will be its last.

Meanwhile, Princeton’s other off-campus site, Art@Bainbridge will stay open for the foreseeable future, with exhibitions currently slotted until July 6, 2025.

The first public announcement about the project, which was distributed on Sept. 18, 2018, stated that “the new museum building, located on the museum’s current site in the center of campus, will present dramatically enlarged space for the exhibition and study of the museum’s encyclopedic collections, special exhibitions and art conservation, as well as object-study classrooms and office space for the 100-person museum staff.”

The new museum was designed by Adjaye Associates, a firm led by Sir David Adjaye, and executive architect Cooper Robertson. Adjaye Associates were also involved in landscape design, which is being managed by James Corner Field Operations.

Sir David Adjaye, a Ghanaian-British architect, has seen controversy following accusations of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and facilitating a toxic work place. Adjaye has been dismissed from the PUAM project, along with several high profile projects.

In the process of unveiling the new building, PUAM also plans to examine the origins and history of its artworks and artifacts more closely. The University recently announced its first curator of provenance, MaryKate Cleary. Currently, the museum has released provenance research for approximately 22,000 of its objects, while 16 pieces in the museum’s collection are linked to Edoardo Almagià ’73, an alleged art smuggler. In April 2023, the Manhattan District Attorney took six works from PUAM that were associated with Almagià on the allegation that the pieces were stolen before the University acquired them.

The new museum, upon opening, will look to uphold its core mission statement as an institution that “educates, challenges, and inspires the students of Princeton University and members of a diverse local, national, and international public through exposure to the world of art.”

This piece has been updated to correct timeline discrepancies.

Isabella Dail is a staff News writer and head editor for The Prospect for the ‘Prince.’