If you build it
Pérez Art Museum Miami, south facade. Photo by Armando Colls, MannyofMiami.com.
Julia Halperin, Museums that expand get more visitors, our data analysis shows, The Art Newspaper, 31 March 2016
Institutions such as the Perez Art Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art saw attendance skyrocket after extensive building work
Museums that expanded between 2007 and 2014 saw their attendance rise significantly faster than museums that did not, according to our analysis of nearly 500 art institutions worldwide. As Tate Modern in London and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art prepare to unveil building projects costing hundreds of millions of dollars, these results confirm what many have long suspected: if you build it, they will come. The annual attendance of expanded museums rose 14.1%, on average, compared with 10.2% for museums that did not expand—a statistically significant difference.