ROANOKE, VA.- Construction continues to progress on schedule for the new Taubman Museum of Art, formerly the Art Museum of Western Virginia, and is expected to be substantially completed by the beginning of August. The museum expects to receive a certificate of occupancy in early August.

First Floor - Installation of the travertine marble floor for the first floor auditorium and atrium is 95% complete and is expected to be completed in the next week. Installation of Hokie Stone is 20% complete at the grand staircase and is complete for the auditorium, theater lobby and museum store. Freight and visitor elevators are installed and functional. Interior lights also are installed and working. Glass treads and maple risers for the grand staircase will be installed in August.

Second Floor - Construction for the second floor gallery spaces and dramatic central hall is 99% complete. The striking luminous ceiling for the central hall is 30% hung. The luminous ceiling extends through the central hall and partially into the contemporary art gallery and American art galleries. The backlit translucent ceiling panels provide lighting continuity throughout the interior spaces by using artificial light filtered from above on the second floor.

Third Floor - The administrative office enclosures are complete, and the doors and glass transoms, which allow natural light to filter into the interior offices from the clerestory windows, are installed. Installation of the concrete pavers for the third floor terrace is complete. Carpet tile installation will be completed this week.

Exterior - The concrete sidewalks and plaza are 95% complete. Installation of the aluminum doors and hardware are currently being installed.

About the Taubman Museum of Art - The Taubman Museum of Art, located in downtown Roanoke, features nineteenth and twentieth century American art, decorative arts, modern and contemporary art, and works on paper, and presents exhibitions of both regional and national significance. Tours, gallery talks, family days, special events, classes, and camps are part of the Taubman Museum of Art’s regular programming. The museum is accredited by the American Association of Museums (AAM).

Scheduled to open to the public in November, the Taubman Museum of Art building will be a dramatic composition of flowing, layered forms in steel, patinated zinc and high-performance glass paying sculptural tribute to the famous Blue Ridge Mountains that provide Roanoke’s backdrop and shape the region’s spirit. The 81,000 square foot structure designed by Los Angeles architect Randall Stout will be the first purpose-built art museum ever constructed in Roanoke. The new facility will house significantly larger exhibition and education spaces, a flexible theater/programming space, a multi-purpose auditorium, a research library, a book and gift shop, a studio classroom, a works on paper study room, and a café with indoor and outdoor seating. All exhibition and education spaces will be wired to provide real-time, interactive distance learning experiences via high speed network to classrooms across the region and the state.

In 2007, the Taubman Museum of Art received one of the prestigious American Architecture Awards awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd. The American Architecture Awards honor and celebrate the most outstanding new accomplishments for architecture designed and built in the United States by leading American firms and international architecture firms practicing in the USA.