CLEVELAND.- The Cleveland Landmarks Commission has just approved architect Rafael Viñoly’s partially finished plan for the expansion and renovation of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Of the eight commission members that attended the meeting, seven approved the basic design concept. Architect Robert Madison abstained from voting. The Landmarks Commission and the City Planning Commission still have to make final approval .

Commission member James Gibans stated: "My general comment is that you hit a home run. This is a masterpiece of planning, and it really does a superb job."

The dynamic design features a soaring glass canopy that unifies the Museum’s campus with vibrant, light-filled spaces. Rafael Viñoly’s design creates an architectural setting on par with the Cleveland Museum of Art’s extraordinary collection of objects spanning 6,000 years. It increases the Museum’s size by 43 percent and employs innovative uses of glass, giving physical form to the Museum’s commitment to openness to enhance the visitor experience. The expanded galleries will allow a greater percentage of the collection to be on view and provide larger, open spaces to feature the Museum’s growing collection of contemporary art.

Over the last 50 years, the Cleveland Museum of Art built three additions to its original 1916 Beaux-Arts building to accommodate its growing audience, programming and collection. Viñoly corrects the navigational and curatorial challenges this mosaic created by designing a cohesive campus with reorganized galleries and more efficient use of space, and reconfigured circulation routes for convenient access to the art on view. The anchors of the new Museum campus are the original 1916 building and a 1971 addition by modernist Marcel Breuer, which will be bridged by two new curvilinear additions and a dramatic courtyard with a cantilevered glass roof.