ANN ARBOR—Nearly 24,000 people streamed into the new University of Michigan Museum of Art leading up to and including the opening weekend with more than half of the attendance coming during the 24-hour community open house.

This past weekend’s overwhelmingly positive public response to the expanded and restored art museum is the capstone of a nearly three-year building project.

“The galleries and hallways were jam-packed, filled with happy, engaged people welcoming the museum back into their lives,” said UMMA Director James Steward. “This kind of embrace by students and the public of the museum as a vital town square for the arts, where people can come together to contemplate art, explore diverse cultures, and exchange ideas is the fulfillment of a dream and the most exciting beginning we could imagine.”

The opening-week festivities began March 24 with a U-M student preview that attracted 5,500, and culminated Sunday with 15,000 people visiting the museum over a 24-hour period. Attendance at other previews, programs, and gala dinners for donors and special guests make up the balance of the week’s turnout of 23,950, far surpassing the museum’s most optimistic projections.

Opening amid difficult economic conditions, ongoing restructuring of the domestic automobile industry, and tough financial challenges for many cultural nonprofits and museums around the country, the expanded museum is a symbol of hope and possibility, Steward said. “The new UMMA is the result of the vision, generosity and sheer hard work of many people working together for a common interest and common love of art and learning,” he said.

Committed to creating the museum as a civic hub, the new UMMA is proving to be a place that bridges campus and community, bringing together students, faculty and the public in an unprecedented, multidisciplinary environment, said Steward. “Our opening weekend showed how much this museum is needed, what an essential role art can play in enriching human experience, and how deeply it can impact the lives of those who visit.”

The renovation and expansion more than doubles the space of the former museum. In addition, the new UMMA stands at the vanguard of university museum in terms of size, breadth and depth of collections and broad focus on inclusivity.

UMMA’s transformation into a multidisciplinary museum town square is designed by architect Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture. The $41.9 million project integrates Alumni Memorial Hall’s Beaux-Arts style with a limestone, steel, and glass-walled exterior along a major pedestrian path and traffic corridor leading through the university’s Central Campus.

Opening exhibitions include “Museums in the 21st Century: Concepts, Projects, Buildings;” “Expressions of Vienna: Master Drawings of Klimt and Schiele from the Pulgram-McSparran Collection;” and, “UMMA Projects: Walead Beshty,” kicking off a new signature exhibition series that focuses on global contemporary art.