Savannah — The Telfair Academy is housed in a 19th-century mansion on an 18th-century square in a city that takes pride in its well-preserved past.

When its expansion, the Jepson Center for the Arts, opens to the public today, Georgia's oldest public museum will leap into the 21st century.

RICHARD LEO JOHNSON/Atlantic Archives (ENLARGE)
Exterior facade of the Moshe Safdie-designed Jepson Center for the Arts, the first expansion in the Telfair Museum of Art's 120-year history.
Stephen Morton (ENLARGE)
The Rotunda gallery at the Telfair Academy of Arts & Science in Savannah is a contrast to the space and light of the Jepson Center for the Arts.
Stephen Morton. (ENLARGE)
Fourth grade students from May Howard Elementary School tour the Hands-On Art Experience Gallery at the Jepson Center for the Arts.
Handout (ENLARGE)
George Bellows 'Snow-Capped River.' 1911
Oscar Williams (ENLARGE)
A dramatic, walk through glass sculpture created for ArtZeum by well-known glass artist Therman Statom.
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MUSEUM PREVIEW Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, includes the original gallery building, the Jepson Center and the historic Owens-Thomas House (a house museum). 1-5 p.m. Sundays, noon-5 p.m. Mondays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. Admission to a single venue: $9, adults; $7, seniors; $2, students; $1 children 6-12; under 6, free. Two venues: $14. Three venues: $18. 121 Barnard St., Savannah. 912-790-8800. www.telfair.org

The 64,000-square-foot facility, cater-corner from the original building, supplies 16,000 square feet of additional exhibition space, including two sculpture terraces.

It also gives the Telfair room for an education center with a lively interactive family gallery. And space for accoutrements that a modern museum requires —a shop, a 220-seat auditorium, a café, a library and a board room.

Enticing architecture

Israeli-born architect Moshe Safdie's modernist design creates an environment that ranges from grand to intimate, and offers a dollop of the unexpected. The building is set close to the street, and its three-story glass and stone facade offers an enticing view into the lobby. Which can be dangerous thing, as curator Holly McCullough can attest.

"One man driving by was so fascinated that he swerved and ran into a parked car," she says.

He was probably agog at the three-story atrium and its dramatic grand staircase, whose curved walls of gleaming white Portuguese limestone are raked with the striped shadows of the sun pouring through a sunscreen-shaded skylight above. Once safely out of his car, he would have found the Jepson's 10 unusually shaped galleries (there's only one with all walls square) equally engaging.

"Every gallery is interesting in its own right because each space is different," says project manager John Hughes, of the Savannah architectural firm Hansen Architects.

Busy seeing to the last-minute details, McCullough is clearly excited herself. Although the 1819 original gallery building has its charms, its status as a historic landmark has stymied the museum's evolution.

For one thing, it can't be altered.

Historic status created obstacles

Even putting nails in the walls is forbidden. (Paintings hang by wires.) And another: Although the scale of this grand house is appropriate for the museum's collection of 18th and 19th-century fine and decorative arts, it doesn't work for large contemporary work. Neither does the loading dock, which is down a flight of stairs. Its opening is so small that sizable paintings have to be removed from their stretchers and rolled up to get inside.

The $30 million project is small potatoes compared to the High Museum of Art's recent $124 million expansion, but it affords the Telfair the same kind of opportunities and promises to raise its profile in the region.

"From the tourism perspective, the opening of Jepson Center is a win-win event," says Anthony Schopp, president of the Savannah Convention and Visitors Bureau. It gives the city one more cultural draw, he adds via email, that should increase the city's appeal to arts aficionados and regular visitors alike.

Large-scale exhibits now possible

The Jepson will allow the Telfair to expand its offerings in size and kind. The museum would not have been able to bring to Savannah "Robert Rauschenberg: Scenarios and Short Stories," a touring exhibition of large-scale paintings and photo-collages, if not for the new center's capacious, high-ceilinged galleries. Nor would it have had room to devote a permanent gallery to Southern art, currently home to "Savannah Revisited: A Century of Art," an exhibition of paintings depicting the city and its storied landscape.

McCullough has lots of ideas for the Southern art gallery. "It would even make a good gallery for an installation," she says.

New buildings have a way of inspiring gifts, and the Jepson is no exception. Elyn Zimmerman, widow of venerated art Museum of Modern Art curator Kirk Varnedoe, a Savannah native, has established a collection in his memory.

So far 22 artists, or their estates, have given prints to the museum. It's an impressive list, from Rauschenberg and Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein to Ellsworth Kelly and Chuck Close. A selection of these are on view in two of the new galleries.

As the doors open to a promising new chapter in the Telfair's history, they close on a difficult one: The museum spent two frustrating years working with the Savannah Historic District Board of Review to approve Safdie's design for the Jepson. That board is charged with protecting the city's historic character, which is key to its identity and a significant source of its tourist revenue.

Architect sent back to drawing board

Snakebit by the three ugly modern federal buildings already on the square, the historic district board sent Safdie back to the drawing board several times.

Preserving the feel of the alley between the Jepson's north and south flanks, original to General James Oglethorpe's city plan, was one source of concern. The proposed all-glass facade was another. The Safdie team solved the first issue by glassing in the bridge spanning the alley to lighten its effect. It added concrete panels to the facade to conform with the glass-to-solid ratio in the city's preservation code.

"The federal buildings didn't set a good precedent," McCullough says. "It was hard for people to grasp that this will eventually be a historic building. I think seeing the building will change their minds."

The process cost about 1,000 square feet of Jepson gallery space, $500,000 in fees and a lot of time, but director Diane Lesko is eager to look ahead.

"This is a great building," she says, but cautions, "It is just the beginning. A great building isn't enough. Now we have to build an endowment for acquisitions. [The current endowment is a little more than $1 million.] We've got a lot of work to do."