If you’ve driven past Notre Dame recently or walked around Eddy Street, watching the construction, you may have noticed a new construction site at Notre Dame. This new project happens to be a new art museum.

This new art museum is located at the University of Notre Dame and is called the Raclin Murphy Museum of art. Construction started May 3rd 2021 and is on track to finish the first phase of constitution in the fall of 2023. This new project is not small, to say the least. It is supposed to cost around $66 million and be 132,000 square feet. To put that into perspective, that’s the same amount of area in over two U.S. football fields.

Before the Raclin Murphy Museum of art, Notre Dame used the Snite Museum. Located closer to the center of Notre Dame’s campus, it was completed in 1980 and has collected around 25,000 art pieces over the years. However, in comparison to the new museum it is only a little more than half the size. Being roughly 70,000 square feet it was time for an update and expansion.

The future of the Snite museum is unknown, but the works it has collected are in good hands. The Snite’s collections will be transferred to the new museum once the construction has finished. There are more plans than just a place to view art. They plan on building learning spaces and a cafe as well.

Make sure to stay updated on the construction of the Raclin Murphy Art Museum. You won’t want to miss out on it. Also don’t forget to check out the Snite Museum which will reopen its doors on August 10th.