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TORONTO — The Gardiner Museum, Toronto’s home for the art of ceramics, has completed a $15.5 million renovation of its 9,000-square-foot ground floor, completely transforming the space.

The recent renovations, which were designed by  and Andrew Jones Design, focus on three core principles: accessibility, connectivity and indigeneity, and wrapped up in November 2025.

According to a release, the original structure, a minimalist limestone building, opened in 1983 and was expanded in 2006. In addition to three floors of exhibition space, the museum houses three ceramics studios, a restaurant and retail shop.

The museum decided in 2022 to undertake renovations to the ground floor, which comprised many different spaces, including an entrance lobby, lobby gallery, coat check, retail space, maker space, community learning centre and collections gallery.

Breaking ground in 2024 during the museum’s 40th anniversary year, the key purpose of the renovations was to align the physical design of these spaces with broader efforts around the three core principles.

The newly renovated ground floor features a continuous ribbon wall that begins at the main entrance and runs through to the collections gallery at the opposite end of the building. The reception desk has been reshaped for improved access and accessibility, and new physical and digital displays have been added to help communicate visitor information, the release adds.

The ribbon wall doubles as a vitrine in the foyer and again in the collections gallery, for artifact display.

“As visitors travel from one end to the other, the vitrines give way to views into the different program spaces,” it adds. “The first of these spaces is the Gardiner’s highly coveted maker-space for community clay classes, newly renovated to improve accessibility, storage, cleanup, ventilation, and display. The next space is the community learning centre, updated to enhance casual day-to-day explorations and better accommodate more intensive, noisy programming, like school groups and summer camps.”  

The collections gallery is also now one large room with newly installed vitrines that delineate the different collections and help guide the flow of movement.

The Gardiner’s Indigenous collection is located in the heart of the room.

A new opening in the east facade of the collections gallery creates a “new east-west circulation spine that emphasizes the connectivity between the collections, the public realm of the museum, and the cultural and civic district beyond,” the release adds.

“This spine doubles as flex space for active and diverse programming opportunities. The west end is conceived as a blank canvas, both in its expression and scale, to be used for temporary exhibitions and or programming. Finally, shelving and storage have been added to the retail space to improve display opportunities and reduce clutter.”