Memphis Builds a New Riverfront Art Museum, Free and Open to All

Memphis is preparing to give itself a remarkable gift: a brand-new art museum on the banks of the Mississippi River, designed to be radically open to its community. In January 2026, the institution long known as the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art unveiled the curatorial vision for its new downtown home, ahead of a planned opening in December 2026 under a new name, the Memphis Art Museum.

The building is the work of the Pritzker Prize-winning Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, with local studio archimania as architect of record. Rising on an entire city block along the riverfront, it will offer 50 percent more gallery space than the old museum and a striking 600 percent more free public space, anchored by a 10,000-square-foot community courtyard at street level and topped by a 50,000-square-foot rooftop sculpture garden with sweeping views of the Mississippi.

“In January 2026, the institution long known as the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art unveiled the curatorial vision for its new downtown home, ahead of a planned opening in December 2026 under a new name, the Memphis Art Museum.”

Just as notable is how the museum is being built. Officials describe it as among the first major U.S. museums constructed using laminated timber, a renewable material that gives the galleries a warm, natural character while lowering the building's environmental footprint. Transparent glass façades at street level are designed to dissolve the boundary between the museum and the city, inviting passersby to feel that the art inside belongs to them.

That spirit of welcome runs through the entire project. By dramatically expanding the free, public portions of the museum, the institution is signaling that great art should not be reserved for those who can pay or who already feel at home in galleries. The community courtyard and open spaces are conceived as gathering places for education programs, events and everyday life, not just for ticketed visitors.

"With this building, our ambition is to be nothing less than transformational for Memphis," said executive director Zoe Kahr. When it opens at the end of 2026, the Memphis Art Museum will house a collection spanning thousands of years of human creativity in a setting built to draw the whole city in. For a place with one of America's richest cultural legacies, it is a bold bet that beauty, generously shared, can help bind a community together.