Richard and Carolyn Barry, longtime supporters of Old Dominion University and the local arts community, have made a $35 million donation to ODU – the largest in the school’s history – that will allow the school to build a 24,000-square-foot art museum.
The museum will showcase more than 100 of the couple’s art glass sculptures. including a prized 400-pound piece called “Prism in a Sphere,” by Czechoslovakian artists Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova. ODU and city officials see the museum as a cog in their efforts to become the arts center of Hampton Roads.
The museum will be on the east corner of Hampton Boulevard and 43rd Street, near the university’s main entrance, and will be adjacent to the Ted Constant Convocation Center and across Hampton Boulevard from the new, four-story Darden College of Education building, which is expected to open in January.
