Cleveland Museum – Betting On City’s Future

The Cleveland Museum’s $258 million expansion is one of the biggest cultural construction projects in the city’s history. “Critics say the museum is overreaching. They claim the museum was good enough as it was and should be left alone. And they say it’s questionable whether the museum can raise all the money it needs in a city with a flagging economy, a shrinking population and a school system in financial distress.” But architecture critic Steve Litt writes that “rather than envision a future based on the worst fears imaginable, trustees of the Cleveland Museum of Art are making a huge bet on the future of Cleveland. That, it seems to me, is what they ought to be doing.”