Florida State University Renovates Ringling Art Museum

Florida State University (FSU) has selected HOK Florida to design the expansion and renovation of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. The Ringling Museum is the largest university museum in the nation. The proposed $44 million project will expand the complex to include a new Visitor Center and Interactive Art Education Facility. An adjunct to the existing Museum will include new art exhibiition galleries as well as a new Art Collection, Library and Archives Facility. Renovation of the existing West Wing of the Museum is also planned. The first phase of the project will include the renovation of the Asolo Theater, a "miniature 18th-century opera house" purchased by the Museum and shipped by boat from Italy to Sarasota in 1950. Because it does not meet safety codes for use as a public space and therefore is currently closed, the goal is to restore the historical theater and relocate it to a more prominent place on the Ringling grounds. This goal is part of a coordinated Master Plan that will better utilize the theater in a new center of the FSU/Ringling Center for the Cultural Arts.