  |
The Whitney's timeworn facade is being scrubbed clean (courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art) |
Richard Gluckman Architects' elevator and stair structure (photo: Michael Moran, courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art ) |
| The restoration component of the recent work will be obvious to
anyone who passes the museum. by Philip Nobel Bouncing back from the public drubbing it suffered after more ambitious plans tanked 10 years ago, New York's Whitney Museum of American Art has quietly expanded. In the process, it has also restored one of the finest works in its permanent collection--the inscrutable box that Marcel Breuer designed in 1966. The public's rejection of the previous expansion scheme (remember Michael Graves's sly, Classical pile?) forced the museum to pursue less invasive strategies. In a clever do-si-do orchestrated by Richard Gluckman Architects, the administrative offices and library were moved from the fifth floor of the museum to a pair of neighboring town houses (linked to the museum and the formerly orphaned Store Next Door through an inconspicuous elevator and stair structure). The reclaimed fifth floor was then transformed into new galleries for the permanent collection--the first in the history of the museum--which will be open to the public by early April. A fourth-floor mezzanine, which was also cleared for gallery use, will feature an operating installation of Alexander Calder's Circus (brought to life in an exhibition design by Ralph Appelbaum Associates) beneath one of the building's signature cockeyed windows. The restoration component of the recent work will be obvious to anyone who passes the museum. Each of the more than 1,400 quarter-ton granite slabs that clad the building has been removed, trucked to a cleaning yard in Queens, New York, and replaced using new anchors. The fine white veins revealed in the cleaned stone tame some of the Whitney's heralded Brutalism. (Even those who still wish the building had Gravesian columns and cornices may find themselves charmed by its newfound grace.) Whitney officials assert that, in its current form, the building will meet their needs for at least 10 years. After that? Look forward to another neighborhood dogfight--or more quiet ingenuity--circa 2008. |
Keywords:
Whitney, museum, addition, Marcel Breuner
