Only 38 minutes after the public opening of the Crow Museum of Asian Art’s second home, located at the University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas), several UT Dallas students wandered around the galleries, murmuring the same reaction.
“Wow!”
This second location for the museum is part of the Phase I building and anchor museum that will be known as the UT Dallas Art Museums. It is the first part of the University of Texas at Dallas’ 12-acre cultural district, the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Athenaeum, to open to the public. As Phase I opened, UT Dallas launched Phase II of the project, breaking ground on a performance hall and music hall. That project is slated to open fall 2026. The Athenaeum will also eventually include a grand plaza, another museum building and a dedicated parking garage.
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The museum opening is the culmination of years of collaboration between the Crow Museum of Asian Art and UT Dallas. The two-story, 57,000 square-foot allows the museum to display more of its permanent collection. The opening exhibition is Ancient Echoes, Modern Voices: The Crow Collection Goes Beyond, featuring the museum’s impressive collection of jade, ceramic works, and textiles. A multimedia gallery debuts Kinmakers: Hidden Songs in Our Mother’s Dreams, a polyphonic exploration of spiritual and world-building rituals.
“This is a dream,” said Amy Lewis Hofland, Senior Director of the Crow Museum of Asian Art.
The museum will continue to maintain and operate its Dallas Arts District home, but this new facility has a distinct advantage.
The Scene
“We are finally able to house our collection that is not on view within the museum. We have it safely tucked in behind these walls here,” said Abraham Carrillo, the museum’s Director of Operations.
The opening of the Phase I facility also introduced the university’s multi-year partnership with the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA). Two galleries commemorate the relationship between UT Dallas’ founding families – the McDermotts, Greens and Jonssons – and the DMA before the university opened. The late Dr. Richard Brettell and Bonnie Pitman, two former DMA directors and champions of Texas artists, are also celebrated. From Texas to the World: Common Ground at UT Dallas and the Dallas Museum of Art, the inaugural exhibition, highlights 41 artworks that span cultures, time periods, and continents.
“For the Dallas Museum of Art, this is not merely an exciting opportunity. It is a crucial element of our strategic vision. Our goal is to meet communities where they are, providing access to art that extends beyond the confines of our own walls in the Dallas Arts District. At the heart of our mission lies the unwavering belief that art is for everyone, and that equity must guide all our efforts,” said Tamara Wootton Forsyth.
The museum also features UT Dallas’ Latin American art collection with the inaugural exhibition, Un/Popular Art: Redefining a Latin American and Caribbean Tradition. On the first floor, In Fine Feather: New Works by Carolyn Brown features photographs of wildlife and plants reimagined from Brown’s still-life images she photographed as well as photographs of Caddo Lake, Atchafalaya Basin, Marfa and the artist’s Dallas backyard.
Morphosis, an architecture firm based in California, developed the master plan for the O’Donnell Athenaeum. After being chosen in 2019, the design process began in 2021, and construction began in 2022.
“The idea and core values of the Athenaeum were really putting art, architecture, knowledge, music and creativity on display all in this beautiful composition and mixture of and for serving students, the faculty and the community,” said Arne Emerson, Design Partner at Morphosis.
The façade of the building is clad in 163 patterned white precast panels created by GATE Precast of Hillsboro, Texas. With the galleries on the second floor, the upper level is larger than the first floor, creating over 10,000 square feet of usable, covered outdoor space. During the museum’s opening events, these spaces quickly became popular.
“It’s been really nice to see how organically it’s been used, how people gather outside,” Emerson said.
With expansive windows, skylights and lightwells, the museum is full of light and connects with the campus beyond the museum.
“We asked for relevance to our downtown museum. You’ll see common threads of light and transparency and warmth,’ Hofland said.
Windows within the galleries can be closed off to protect art from light as needed. A large window in one gallery overlooks what is now a large construction site. In two years, students visiting the museum will be able to see their classmates working in the performance hall’s rehearsal rooms. It’s an intriguing glimpse of the future.
“This is a place where these works of art will impact generations to come. Just imagine the student that is now here at UTD and owns this collection. It belongs to the State of Texas. It belongs to the students that attend here, and they will see a work here and they will remember it 30 years from now as their own,” Hofland said.
Learn more: Crow Museum of Asian Art
