NEW YORK — The Morgan Library & Museum’s McKim building, which houses the rare books, drawings and artifacts J.P. Morgan collected over his lifetime, is going to get a face-lift — this time of its exterior.

On Thursday, the museum’s director, Colin B. Bailey, announced the $12.5 million project, which aims to improve the landmark building’s roof, metalwork fence, weathered limestone and sculptures that adorn the Italian Renaissance-style palazzo. The complex underwent a $106 million renovation and expansion in 2006, designed by Renzo Piano, and revamped the McKim’s interior for $4.5 million in 2010. This, however, will be its first exterior renovation since the building’s completion in 1906.

The project also includes enhanced lighting to better illuminate the building from 36th Street, and new landscaping for the library’s surrounding grounds, by New York-based Future Green studio and landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan.

For Bailey, the new project is an attempt to restore the “jewel in the crown of the Morgan’s campus,” and return it as closely to how Morgan and the building’s original architect, Charles McKim, envisioned it.

“This is the first time that we have the opportunity to really improve the way the building and its decorations and its sculpture looks,” Bailey said in a phone interview. “We can try to bring attention on 36th Street to this historic architectural treasure. And we can, at the same time, tell the story of how McKim and Morgan came to build this wonderful building.”

Bailey said the Morgan has spent the last two years carefully reviewing the building with Integrated Conservation Resources, a firm specializing in historic restoration, to document its condition and generate a needs assessment. From there, it raised nearly 75 percent of the needed funds through private gifts from its board of trustees and major foundation supporters, including the Sherman Fairchild Foundation and Morgan Stanley, but, Bailey says, “We still have quite a way to go.”

The renovation to the building’s exterior will take place this year, wrapping up in December, and the landscaping work is set to be completed and accessible to the public by fall 2020. Bailey says that while visitors will be able to see the restoration in process outside, none of the interior spaces or the museum’s activities will be impinged.

In October 2020, visitors to the Morgan will be able to see the how the building came to be, both over its original construction from 1902 to 1906, and through its more recent restoration by way of an exhibition featuring documents, images and models from its history, and a new book.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.