May 06, 2026
Provided Image/Kengo Kuma & Associates/Field Operations
The Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art is planning a $100 million expansion with a new gallery building and a public nature preserve with walking trails. The project is expected to be finished in fall 2029.
The Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art in Chadds Ford will undertake a $100 million renovation of its campus next year, adding a second museum building and a 325-acre public nature preserve.
The Delaware County museum, whose collection showcases American art from the 19th and 20th centuries, said Wednesday the project will create 10 miles of trails bookended by the two museum buildings. Construction will begin in 2027 with a target to open the new building in fall 2029.
"We're creating an experience of quiet elegance where light-filled spaces connect you to the surrounding preserve — where visitors move from contemplating American art in our galleries to walking the landscapes that inspired it," Virginia Logan, CEO and executive director of the conservancy and museum, said in a statement.
The nearly 60-year-old museum has a dual mission to promote land conservation and teach the public about the legacy of notable American artists and illustrators. It houses the world's largest collection of works by Andrew Wyeth, whose landscapes of the Brandywine Valley blended traditional style with modern regional narrative, and the museum manages Wyeth's Chadds Ford studio as a historic site.
The project is expected to be funded with a combination of private donations and state grants.
The footprint of the current museum will expand with 14,000 square feet of gallery space in the new building, adding to 6,000 square feet in the original 19th century grist mill on the banks of the Brandywine Creek.
Japanese design firm Kengo Kuma & Associates and Boston's Schwartz/Silver Architects Inc. have been selected to develop the new building as a series of four wood-clad pavilions rising from the landscape.
An aerial rendering shows the new gallery building planned at the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art.
Provided Image/Vibsu
Plans call for a collection of landscape paintings to be displayed in the upper level hall with sweeping views of the nature preserve. Andrew Wyeth will get his own gallery and another space will be dedicated to generations of the Wyeth family, including Andrew's father N.C. Wyeth, his sisters Caroline and Henriette, and his son Jamie.
The new museum building will also have a special exhibition gallery and office space.
A rendering shows the loft space of the new gallery building that will overlook the nature preserve at the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art.
The current museum building suffered significant damage during Hurricane Ida in 2021. The property recently underwent a series of renovations, including flood protection measures, and will get additional modifications as part of the upcoming project. Plans include an interactive exhibit on land and water conservation, a studio art classroom and other educational spaces. The building will continue to house the museum's permanent collection, home to notable works by Maxfield Parrish, Violet Oakley and West Chester's renowned folk painter Horace Pippin, as well as the Millstone Café overlooking the creek.
Philadelphia-based landscape architects Field Operations will oversee the creation of the nature preserve that surrounds the museum buildings, which currently give visitors access to about 15 acres. The campus will get an expanded garden, a boardwalk that runs through wetlands, an outdoor classroom and a play area.
“The Brandywine Valley is a landscape of profound ecological significance, and our design for the expanded preserve and gardens seeks to reveal and celebrate both, while raising awareness of the essential, but often less visible, work of the Conservancy," Field Operations partner Sarah Weidner Astheimer said in a statement.
A site map shows future development plans for the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art in Chadds Ford.
A rendering shows a view from the new building planned at the Brandywine Conservancy & Museum of Art.
The museum and conservancy are about five miles east of Longwood Gardens, which underwent a $250 million renovation in recent years that expanded the campus by 17 acres and added a new conservatory with a Mediterranean garden.
Thomas Padon, director of the Brandywine Museum of Art, said the project will fortify the museum and conservancy as a regional destination.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that this expansion to our campus completely reimagines the visitor experience to Brandywine and how the public interacts with our collections and exhibitions,” Padon said in a statement.
