A museum takes care of its collection, but the museum itself can – and must – change. Nineteen years after its last renovation, Toronto’s Gardiner Museum recently unveiled a ground-floor rebuild that reshapes 9,000 square feet of interior space for a new moment: warm, legible and welcoming to broader audiences.

The $15.5-million transformation, which plays out entirely within the museum walls, was designed by Montgomery Sisam Architects and Andrew Jones Design with Chris Cornelius of studio: indigenous.

“We landed on three main ideas for this transformation: connectivity, Indigeneity and accessibility,” museum deputy director Sequoia Miller explained last week while standing in the middle of the lobby – subtle grey porcelain tile underfoot, gentle lighting trickling down through a slatted ceiling.

Visitors who haven’t been in years might need a moment to understand the change. You enter, as before, through glass doors at one corner of the building. But after encountering an intricate installation by Nadia Myre, you can turn left and move diagonally across the entire ground floor, where two walls have been removed. A new white-oak reception desk welcomes you like an open hand. Expanses of new casework show off temporary exhibitions to the left. To the right, a redesigned gift shop and workshop line one wall.