The Portland Art Museum unveiled plans to expand its campus by connecting the museum’s freestanding buildings with a new building, to be named the Rothko Pavilion, in recognition of artist Mark Rothko, who lived in Portland as a youth after immigrating from Latvia. The expansion plan also includes a partnership with the artist's children, Christopher Rothko and Kate Rothko Prizel, to lend the museum major paintings by Mark Rothko from their private collection over the next two decades.

Designed by Chicago-based Vinci Hamp Architects, the three-story Rothko Pavilion will add roughly 30k SF to the museum and will be anchored by a glass-walled stair tower that will connect the Pavilion to the museum’s main building. The naming was made possible thanks to the $8M lead gift from an anonymous donor. A $75M capital and endowment campaign to fund the project is well underway. Groundbreaking is scheduled to take place in 2018, with an expected completion date for the project in late 2020 or early '21.