whitney museum

Whitney Museum at the High Line

Background Founded in 1931 by

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a sculptor

700 works of American Art were displayed at 8-12 West 8th Street

In 1966, building moved to its current location at 75th and Madison Ave.

Current building designed by Hungarian architect, Marcel Brever

Proposed Expansion

In 2003, Rem Koolhaas proposed a 9-story building on top of adjacent brownstones

Estimated cost was $200 million

Plan was rejected because the Museum couldn’t afford it

“Whitney’s Identity Crisis”

Leonard A. Lauder donated $131 million to the Whitney in 2008

$680 million project that involved opening a second museum at the High Line was proposed

Is it affordable? Should the uptown building be abandoned? Can there be a compromise?

Budget Issues Combined yearly costs would increase

from $36 million to $60 million

Whitney had only raised $371 million through signed pledges

The original building was leased to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for next 8 years

The High Line Project

Designed by Renzo Piano, an Italian Pritzker-Prize winning architect

Six-story, 195,000 square-foot building

Cantilevered entrance with restaurants and cafes. Transparent, glass doors.

Four levels of outdoor gallery space that face the High Line, including the roof.

Exposed steel girders on the roof echo the steel structure of the High Line itself.

170-seat theater with windows overlooking the Hudson

The Museum is expected to be open to public by 2015.

Sources

http://whitney.org/About/NewBuilding?query=Future

http://buildipedia.com/in-studio/architects-firms/what-s-next-for-the-whitney?print=1&tmpl=component

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/arts/design/02whit.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/arts/design/12museum.html?pagewanted=all