by Bailey White
Staff Writer
In the final days before its May 2 grand opening, the Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art is a busy place.
The museum’s staff now occupies the fourth floor of its new home in the old Western Union Telegraph Company building on North Laura Street. They work to the noise of final exterior renovations, the sounds of exhibitions being installed and to the last minute bits of polishing that will make the museum sparkle at the opening reception.
Transforming the 1931 building across from Hemming Plaza and its five floors and 56,000 square feet into a suitable place for the museum spanned almost three years.
“It’s a rich project,” said Jane Craven, president of JMOMA. “I can’t wait for people to see it.”
The renovations were donated by the Museum Design Collaborative, a group of 14 architects, six interior designers, two historical consultants, a graphic designer, a structural engineer and a theater consultant who volunteered their expertise.
“We wanted the development of the museum to be a community project in every respect,” said Walter Taylor, an architect with KBJ Architects and chair of the steering committee that guided the group. “It was a true collaboration for everyone involved and out of that came a very beautiful design that probably couldn’t have been without that cooperation.”
The renovation work was grand in scale.
“We had to replace the stairs because they didn’t meet code, we had to take out two elevators and add one big one and there was an enormous amount of cleaning to be done,” said Taylor.
Despite large scale construction, it was important to the group — and to JMOMA — to maintain accurate historical details. One member of the team, Larry Ponder, an architect with Saxelbye Architects (the building’s original architects were Harold Saxelbye and Mulford Marsh) located the building’s original plans, which offered insight to the building’s origins.
“Drawings in the 1930s were minimal compared with today, so we still had to do a lot of careful research,” said Taylor.
That research lead to the recreation of specific details, including a replica of the original winged globe Western Union emblem on the northwest corner of the building and the restoration of two ornate doors on Laura Street.
Pedroni’s Cast Stone worked with St. Augustine-based sculptor Enzo Torcoletti to create molds for the lost ornamentation.
The first floor is home to a museum book shop and work by artist Cynthia Walthem, who created two large paintings that will hang in the lobby.
Cafe NoLa (it stands for North Laura) will also be located on the first floor. Its operators are the owners of Cafe Sonoma in Jacksonville Beach.
From the first floor, a visitor has access to a new addition of the building’s original U-shape. An area extending to the top of the third floor windows was filled in to make room for the atrium gallery. With its 40-foot high ceilings, the atrium gallery is an ideal spot to exhibit large sculptures and paintings, which will be visible from the second and third floors.
A state-of-the-art theater that seats 125 has also been built in the new space and will be home to the museum’s film series, the Subterranean Cinema at JMOMA. The museum hired Tim Masset, owner and operator of the local art and independent film house Subterranean Cinema, as its director of film.
The theater’s inaugural showing is Masset’s original film “Head to Toe,” which features a live performance by musician J. Peele, and the theater will provide a setting for a portion of the Jacksonville Film Festival during the weekend of May 16-18. For that Masset has chosen a series of experimental shorts and a film for children.
“Then, in September, the museum will start its own film series headed up by Tim,” said Craven. “He’ll be programming three six-week long series a year for us.”
The second floor gallery will be a place for traveling exhibitions such as “Skin: Contemporary Views of the Body,” which will be installed for the May 2 opening.
The museum’s permanent collection and a regional gallery will be on the third floor and administration is on the fourth.
The fifth floor is home to the ArtExplorium Loft, an interactive space designed for children and families, featuring 16 educational and hands-on stations. The space is the work of Design in 3-D, a Canada-based design firm that has done similar work in Hong Kong, Toronto and other cities in the United States.
The fifth floor also houses drawing, painting and ceramic studio classrooms as part of the curriculum JMOMA offers to the public. The space has modern touches such as track lighting, but also hints of the buildings past in places where brick has been left exposed.
“We wanted people to see the internal structure,” said Craven. “That way they get a sense of what this building was.”
A large photography lab with 10 enlargers fills the basement and will also be part of the museum’s educational programs. The museum will offer its summer camp program next year.
For a building that stood vacant for the last eight or nine years, that’s a lot of activity.
“One of the strongest concepts of historic preservation and restoration is that if you take a building and give it new meaning, you’ve accomplished a great deal,” said Taylor. “Now the building has a new life.”
And Craven thinks the museum will help bring new life to downtown.
“I feel like we’re an important part of the city’s revitalization,” she said. “Being in the heart of the city really places us in the right place as far as outreach.”
• JMOMA’s Grand Opening Reception and Inaugural Exhibition presented by AmSouth Bank is scheduled for May 2 at 7 p.m. The event is free for members and $40 for non-members, and the cost may be applied towards membership. Call 366-6911 for details.
• May 4 is the start of Bank of America’s Family Free Day. From noon-4 p.m. on Sunday, children and their families will receive free admission to the museum.
• An exhibition featuring new paintings by Woody Cornwell and “Celebrating Post-World War II Art: Highlights from JMOMA’s Permanent Collection,” will also both be on display in time for the grand opening celebration May 2.