The Museum is open with updated hours, Wednesday through Sunday, 10 am to 5 pm, required free timed tickets to encourage social distancing, and increased health and safety procedures including required cloth masks. Learn more about these updates at ncartmuseum.org/covid19. Museum from Home programming continues, including virtual events.
The Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park connects art, nature, and people to encourage creative experiences and human interactions. It features temporary and permanent public art installations by international artists, environmentally sustainable landscapes, colorful and contemporary gardens, miles of recreational trails, and a terraced pond. Choose your own adventure in the Park: Step inside a cloud chamber. Picnic near the iconic trio of Gyre rings, or relax on the Ellipse lawn. Bike and jog along the Capital Area Greenway and wooded trails. Discover points of interest on trailside signs with information on art and the history of the NCMA, and participate in recreational programs and performing arts. Visit the Park often to find your own special connection, and sign up for email updates to learn more about Park events and news.
The Museum Park art program facilitates collaborations among artists, designers, and environmental scientists to create works of art inspired by the natural world. Artists are commissioned to create site-specific temporary and permanent works that directly engage the landscape and present new perspectives on the natural world, exploring our relationship to the environment and the role of nature in contemporary society.
The Park is free and open daily, including holidays, from dawn to dusk.
The Park’s trail system leads visitors through natural areas and to commissioned works of art. Designed for hiking, walking, and jogging only, the unpaved natural trails allow visitors to deeply experience art and nature. Cyclists and self-propelled wheeled vehicles may travel on the paved trails only.
The Reedy Creek Greenway system is a paved multiuse pathway that runs through west Raleigh and connects the eastern portion of the Park to Meredith College and N.C. State University via a pedestrian bridge. The greenway connects the western portion of the NCMA Park to Umstead State Park and Schenck Forest.
Park rules are enforced to protect visitor safety, works of art, and the environment.
Public Safety
Bikes and Pets
Art and the Environment
Visitors are encouraged to volunteer in the NCMA Park on designated work days. Projects include mulching trails, removing exotic species, planting seedlings, removing trash, and maintaining art installations, which could include painting, cleaning, or installing art pieces.
Explore the Museum Park through the Art + Nature + People scavenger hunt. This interactive scavenger hunt takes you throughout our 164-acre Park encourages creative experiences and human interactions for all ages. To use, download the PDF, grab a hard copy from the West Building ticket desk during gallery hours, or request one from our Park Rangers when you visit.
The Museum Park has been transformed over the 30 years since the Museum opened on Blue Ridge Road, growing from the original 50-acre site in 1983 to the current 164-acre campus of trails amid outdoor sculpture. The Park provides a unique opportunity for experiencing art and active living.
Construction is now underway on the Park Welcome Center, which will open in late 2021. The Welcome Center will be located next to the Museum's parking lots along Blue Ridge Road, near the 100-year-old smokestack. Visitors may experience construction vehicles entering the building site from the District Drive entrance and should use caution approaching or leaving the Museum campus. The completed Welcome Center will provide restrooms, meeting space, and covered deck with views to the smokestack and upper Park.
From August 2015 through September 2016, we created new tree-lined parking, contemporary gardens, a promenade connecting Park and galleries, and an elliptical lawn overlooking the Park’s beautiful rolling meadow. Learn more.
The Museum partnered with North Carolina State University’s School of Architecture on a toolshed for volunteers. (The Museum also partnered with the school in 2012 for a pond platform project.) Graduate students in a summer 2016 Design/Build program led by Durham architects Randall Lanou and Ellen Cassilly designed and built the toolshed in the Museum’s new Discovery Garden. The structure supports volunteers’ weekly work in the NCMA Park and provides a covered space for future programs in the garden.
NCMA Park staff members have expertise in horticulture and ecology. They consult with specialists at N.C. State University to determine how best to handle the kudzu and blackberries on the Museum campus. These invasive species threaten other wildlife such as native trees. Volunteers and staff cut back the vines and bushes and carefully apply chemicals to slow their progress. But these invasive species will never fully disappear, making constant maintenance necessary.
Through a generous gift from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the Museum has undertaken a major expansion and revision of Park trails. The centerpiece of the project is a one-mile trail (the Blue Loop) for walking and cycling that opens a new section of the Park.
The Museum partnered with N.C. State University’s School of Architecture for this project. Graduate students in a summer Design/Build program led by architects Ellen Cassilly and Randy Lanou designed and built a viewing platform off the wooded path. From its deck visitors have a view across the water back to the Museum, reinforcing connections between Park and galleries while providing a respite and gathering place.
With generous support from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, the Museum’s retention pond was redesigned to aesthetically control and clean storm water before it enters North Carolina’s streams and rivers. Terraces are planted with native perennials and ornamental grasses. As water moves across these various ecosystems, pollutants are filtered from the water via plant roots and soil particles. The pond renovation is part of a comprehensive storm water management initiative for the Museum campus, which also includes a 90,000-gallon underground water storage cistern, rain gardens, and drought-tolerant plantings and fescue lawn.
The lush sculpture gardens, designed by Lappas + Havener, unite stunning landscape design and sustainable environmental standards. Gravel and paved paths lead to striking works of art, some especially commissioned for the new landscape. Three reflecting ponds filled with water lilies and lotus plants accent the outdoor gathering spaces. The sustainable water management system ties into the Museum Pond.
A connector between two pieces of the Reedy Creek Greenway system, the 660-foot-long, 12-foot-wide, triple-arch bridge provides safe passage for pedestrians and cyclists over the busy I–440 Beltline.
The North Carolina Museum of Art is grateful to the following donors who have made major contributions to the Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park and the Art in the Environment Fund:
The 1947 Society (Gifts of $1,000,000 and more)
Joseph M. Bryan, Jr.
Ann and Jim Goodnight
The North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund
$500,000 –$999,999
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina
Estate of Ruby Crumpler McSwain
North Carolina State Art Society
$250,000–$499,999
Ernest and Ruby McSwain Charitable Foundation
Tom and Pat Gipson
GSK
Harriet Jackson Phelps Charitable Trust
Hunter Industries, Inc.
John Deere Foundation
Thomas S. Kenan III
National Endowment for the Arts
$100,000–$249,999
Estate of Mrs. Warner L. Atkins
Libby and Lee Buck
Duke Energy
The Hartfield Foundation
David R. Hayworth
N.C. Department of Environmental Quality
Wells Fargo Philanthropic Services
$50,000–$99,999
A. J. Fletcher Foundation
BB&T
Julia and Frank A. Daniels, Jr.
Dover Foundation, Inc.
Mrs. James Ficklen, Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. Jake Froelich, Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. Alfred L. Hobgood, Jr.
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Lowe’s Companies, Inc.
Martin Marietta Materials, Inc.*
Frances M. and William R. Roberson, Jr.
Joel and Christy Shaffer
Mr. and Mrs. J. Willie York
$25,000–$49,999
Holly and Bill Blanton
Mr. and Mrs. Albert G. Borden
Mrs. Starke S. Dillard, Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. Harvey B. Hamrick
Carol and Rick McNeel
Mills Family Foundation
Rauch Industries, Inc.
SunTrust Bank
U.S. Department of Education
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