The projected cost of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Wing continues to mount but so, too, does the amount raised for the project.
The institute said Thursday that private donors have given $300 million toward the $373 million now being sought to build the wing and a companion bridge and to endow the structures. Last October, it said it had raised $267 million of a then-goal of $350 million.
The updates came at a groundbreaking ceremony held in Millennium Park for a planned $30 million pedestrian bridge across Monroe Drive. The bridge would link the south end of the park and the third floor of the Modern Wing.
The wing, a 264,000-square-foot addition to the Art Institute at Monroe and Columbus Drives, and the bridge are among the most ambitious cultural projects attempted in the city. Thomas Pritzker, chairman of the museum’s board of trustees, called the amount raised to date “a milestone” for the museum and city.
Both the addition and the bridge are designed by Renzo Piano. The famed architect and museum President James Cuno led a tour of the half-built addition after the groundbreaking.
The additions are expected to open in mid-2009.
The 620-foot-long, 15-foot-wide bridge would rise at a low angle from the southwest corner of the park’s Great Lawn to the top floor of the new wing. The hope is it brings park visitors to the wing, which is to house modern and contemporary art.
