A New Building and Era for the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art

Dear Miller ICA Community,

I am very excited to share the news that earlier today Carnegie Mellon's President, Farnam Jahanian, announced a new significant leadership grant of $15 million from the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation and the Henry L. Hillman Foundation. With this grant, the ICA will design and build a prominent new facility across from the Carnegie Museums as a marquee element of the university's transformational Richard King Mellon Hall of Sciences—an expansive project dedicated to the future of science that was announced last year and made possible by a lead grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation.

The ICA's new 25,000 square-foot building will include multiple galleries capable of exhibiting ambitious projects by contemporary artists who engage with the most urgent issues of our time and work across a wide range of media. The new ICA will be an active civic space where the CMU and Pittsburgh communities can engage in conversation and exchange as they encounter new art and ideas together in public. This flexible facility will open in August of 2026 and we will spend the next four years designing the new building and imagining new possibilities for institutional models. In an era when the definition of a museum is ever expanding, we hope to contribute a fresh vision for the future of museums both in form and in concept. We are incredibly grateful for this opportunity to reimagine the role that cultural institutions play in advancing culture and building a better world.

I would like to thank Lea Simonds, the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation, and the Henry L. Hillman Foundation for this transformative gift and their many years of support for Carnegie Mellon University. They are important pillars of both our Pittsburgh and CMU communities, and we are grateful to count them among our biggest champions.

I would also like to thank Farnam Jahanian, Carnegie Mellon University's President, Mary Ellen Poole, the Stanley and Marcia Gumberg Dean of the College of Fine Arts, and Charlie White, the Regina and Marlin Miller Head of the School of Art, for their visionary support and leadership. I want to thank the Board of Trustees of the Richard King Mellon Foundation, especially its director, Sam Reiman, for their lead grant to support the Hall of Sciences complex and its expansion. I want to thank Rebecca Doerge, the Glen de Vries Dean of the Mellon College of Science, and Martial Hebert, dean of the School of Computer Science, for their leadership and collaboration around this project. And lastly, I thank Carnegie Mellon's Board of Trustees for their support of this vision.

This is an exciting time at the ICA and I look forward to sharing more with you as this transformational project takes shape in the months ahead.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Chodos
Director | Miller Institute for Contemporary Art