Stretching across city blocks and combining three major buildings of varying architectural styles, Yale University Art Gallery will unveil its $135 million renovation project on Dec. 12. Monets and Basquiats, Asian art and period funriture--all part of Yale's encyclopedic collections of more than 200,000 objects--harmonize in breathtaking new galleries.

Yale's Louis Kahn building, which re-opened after renovation in 2006, the Old Yale Art Gallery and Street Hall have been masterfully combined into 69,975 square feet by New York’s Ennead Architects.

“This is a really amazing day for us. It’s the culmination of 18 years of work here. ... Any image you have of a university gallery, you might want to put it out of your mind,” said gallery Director Jock Reynolds to reporters at a press preview.

The Yale University Art Gallery—the oldest and one of the most important university art museums in America—was founded in 1832, when patriot-artist John Trumbull donated more than 100 paintings to Yale College and designed a gallery to house them. Since then, the Gallery’s collections have grown to number more than 200,000 objects from around the world, ranging in date from ancient times to the present day.