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Whitney Museum of American Art, Downtown Branch

Architecture News - Aug 28, 2008 - 16:50   11301 views

Since 1985, the Whitney Museum of American Art has presented three separate expansion plans for its 42-year-old home in Upper Manhattan—all of which have fizzled. Once again, the institution is trying to increase its square footage, with hopes that an entirely new strategy will make the fourth time a charm.
In late April, the museum debuted Renzo Piano’s scheme for a new satellite building in the city’s Meatpacking District. The unveiling comes less than two years after the institution purchased the 185,000-square-feet downtown site, where the Dia Art Foundation had originally planned to build a New York flagship museum. The city currently is reviewing Piano’s scheme after a community board approved it in June.

The 50,000-square-foot facility will include some 15,000 square feet of outdoor exhibition space across several stories. According to Whitney Director Adam Weinberg, the new branch will increase the museum’s capacity to exhibit its permanent collection, and will offer events that its uptown headquarters cannot accommodate. The project also allows the museum to return to its “downtown roots,” Weinberg says, adding that the pale cantilevered form of Piano’s design reflects “the roughness and simplicity” of nearby warehouses and cobblestone streets.

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