Image © Courtesy of the Princeton University Art Museum. Photo: Richard Barnes
Princeton, USA 2025
At the very heart of Princeton University’s historic campus is a treasure house of art. There, you will discover famous works by 20th-century luminaries such as Picasso, Rothko, Mitchell and Moore, sitting alongside extensive collections of photography, Greek and Roman antiquities, medieval art, Chinese calligraphy and bronzes, and paintings by 19th century artists. It is a world-class collection that began to take shape even before the university founded its museum in 1882.
Units
22
Display Exhibition Designer
Adjaye Associates
Announced in 2018, the brand-new Princeton University Art Museum opened its doors to the public in October 2025. The building expands the space for exhibition, conservation, study, and interpretation of the museum’s collections to 146,000 square feet – 80,000 square feet of which is dedicated gallery space. Alongside the three-story-height Grand Hall, there is also an Education Center and two Creativity Labs, where visitors of all ages and abilities can participate in making art.
Designed by the architectural firm Adjaye Associates, in collaboration with executive architects Cooper Robertson, the new development was overseen by Museum Director James C. Steward and University Architect Ron McCoy. Speaking to the Art Newspaper, Steward commented, “It’s truly a project of form following function, built from the inside out and amplifying the art inside. In the tradition of the Gothic Revival buildings on the Princeton campus, the interiors are breathtaking for their rich use of materials — even before the art started coming in.”
Goppion collaborated on the exhibit design project spearheaded by Adjaye Associates. Through an extensive phase of engineering design assistance, Goppion’s team was able to examine every aspect of the construction in detail. This collaborative process included prototyping and iterative development, ensuring that each solution was fully optimized before production and installation.
Goppion engineered 22 display cases for these bold new galleries, comprising mainly wall-standing display cases. Five of these are double-sided, allowing one side to be viewed by the public and the other side accessible only to museum staff, allowing easy access to the objects on show.
Particular attention to the engineering of opening methods was required, given that some display cases are hinged and others sliding. One key feature is a special corner display case—an “L”-shaped pull-and-slide model with a suspended door system that opens 70 percent to the left and right. This partial innovation builds on a solution previously developed by Goppion at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York but was adapted here at a much larger scale. A full-scale prototype was created to test this unprecedented configuration, which includes a large rear service cavity designed not only for functional access but also to accompany and enhance the building’s architecture. The suspended glass door operates on specially engineered guides, allowing smooth, stable movement despite its considerable size. Several lighting trials—including tests conducted at night—were carried out to evaluate the case’s performance and visual impact.
Image © Courtesy of the Princeton University Art Museum. Photo: Richard Barnes
Careful forward planning also ensured that many of our larger materials were transported early and delivered onsite during the construction phase. This allowed passage into spaces that would later be enclosed, such as the stairwell; later, it would also have been impossible to move some items via corridors and elevators.
Perhaps most notable of all is a larger, 6-meter-long special B class display case with electric actuators. This bespoke case hosts a beautiful example from the Museum’s collection of antique stained-glass windows. Here, we installed backlit LED panels to maximize the lighting effect for visitors to enjoy the work at its best.
The new Art Museum is a testament to Princeton University’s committed belief in the power and value of museums as educational, inclusive and inspiring places, for the generations of today and tomorrow. Goppion, as ever, is proud to play our part in such an endeavor.
