None of them is pristine. From the beginning, they experienced decades of fitful renovation, and their occupants still keep bursting through walls. There’s never enough space. Some institutions wear their history more lightly, or have the luxury of starting fresh. The Whitney will soon move into a brand-new building, and MoMA keeps knocking down anything that sits in its expansionist path. But most museums have to keep adapting to their old homes. They build additions and gut interiors to accommodate ever-expanding crowds and collections, and every time a fluted column or pedimented doorway gets in the way of a future gallery, the same problem crops up: how to make a grand old building more rational and efficient without neutralizing its ­idiosyncrasies—how, in other words, to make it better without ruining it completely....Continue Reading

> via vulture.com