November 22, 2006

In July, New York landmarks officials granted approval for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Renzo Piano–designed expansion adjacent to its 1966 Marcel Breuer building. The deal’s done, right? Not exactly.

Whitney spokesperson Jan Rothschild has acknowledged that the museum is investigating other locations for the expansion, and that an announcement of the final setting could come as early as this week. Rothschild explains the nine-story Upper East Side plan, while loved by Whitney officials, may not be cost effective because of its complex historic site restrictions.

One possible site is on Gansevoort Street, on the south end of the High Line park that’s taking shape atop an abandoned elevated railway track in the city’s Meatpacking District. That lot had been reserved for the Dia Art Foundation’s new two-story museum. But its plan was dropped in late October. Rothschild says the other possible locations cannot be revealed at this time.

Piano’s proposal is the third expansion proposal for the museum, after earlier designs by Michael Graves and Rem Koolhaas were discarded. Piano’s minimalist building would sit within a group of brownstones on Madison Avenue and 74th Street, standing taller than the Breuer building and connected to it via glazed, enclosed bridges between galleries on each floor. The plan had run into significant opposition from local residents and preservationists, but won city approval in July.

Rothschild says the necessity of building behind and over the existing brownstones “created a lot of engineering and construction issues,” which, along with escalating construction prices, increased projected costs. While that plan is still a possibility, “at the end of the day it represents the bare minimum” for additional exhibition space, she says.

The Whitney’s permanent collection has grown by more than 65 percent over the last 10 years, reaching almost 15,000 works. Currently, the able is restricted to showing less than 2 percent of its permanent collection.

Sam Lubell

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