North Exhibition Building Study Completed 2013 16,000 square feet New Construction

Since 2007, Oudens Ello Architecture has partnered with Mystic Seaport Museum on a wide range of campus improvements, renovations, and planning initiatives supporting the museum’s educational, exhibition, and visitor experience goals. Over a six-year period, OEA provided architectural services for numerous studies, renovations, and conceptual planning efforts across the Mystic, Connecticut campus. Early projects included renovations to the Carr House, a dormitory for the Williams College–Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program, and the conversion of the museum’s replica of Nantucket’s Brant Point Lighthouse into an interactive exhibition space focused on lighthouses throughout the United States.

OEA subsequently completed several facility assessments and feasibility studies addressing the museum’s evolving programmatic needs and aging building stock, including studies for the conversion of the G.W. Blunt White Library into exhibition space, renovations to the Labaree House administration offices, and assessments of the Stillman, Mallory, and Schaefer exhibition buildings.

In 2008, Mystic Seaport commissioned OEA to design a new 55,000-square-foot exhibition building intended to redefine the museum’s visitor experience. Following the economic downturn and changes in museum leadership, OEA was re-engaged in 2013 to recalibrate the project vision. The resulting concept combined strategic renovations to existing exhibition facilities with a new 16,000-square-foot exhibition building, creating an enhanced gallery quad at the north end of campus. This planning effort ultimately informed the realization of the McGraw Gallery Quadrangle and Thompson Exhibition Building.