Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The Whitney of the future
will be downtown in the Meatpacking District,
a former industrial neighborhood of New York City
now a destination for vanguard architecture,
design, fashion, restaurants, and soon--
an extraordinary museum.
The Whitney Museum of American Art
was founded by sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
and opened its doors in 1931 in Greenwich Village.
It was the first museum to focus exclusively
on art and artists of the United States.
In 1954, the Museum relocated
to an expanded space on 54th Street
which it quickly outgrew, and moved to its current location
on Madison Avenue and 75th Street in 1966.
The new building on Gansevoort Street will be bordered by
the Hudson River and the southern entrance to the High Line,
New York's beloved new elevated park,
which runs through Chelsea's nonprofit arts institutions
and the largest gallery district in the world.
The future Whitney is designed
to embrace and reciprocate the energy of the neighborhood
and provide a stimulating and immersive space
in which to experience art.
Renzo Piano's design invites the neighborhood
into the museum through a continual play
of interior and exterior exhibition spaces.
A grand staircase
leads to the temporary exhibition space
of more than 18,000 square feet--
the largest column-free museum gallery in New York City--
providing unprecedented opportunities
to show innovative work across all media.
Totaling 25,000 square feet,
the next two floors will offer the first
comprehensive view of the Whitney's unsurpassed collection
of modern and contemporary American art,
which has grown from 2,000 works in 1966
to more than 19,000 today.
The top floor features a sky-lit gallery
for large-scale artists' projects
and an indoor and outdoor cafe.
There are 13,000 square feet
of outdoor galleries spread across four levels
that will be used for exhibitions
with the city as their backdrop.
A study center, conservation lab,
research library, and state-of-the-art classrooms
link the Museum's intellectual resources
with the galleries and other public spaces.
The Whitney's new theater
allows for multiple configurations and uses,
including performance, film and installation.
In a proscenium arrangement, it houses 170 seats.
Reaching high and west towards the Hudson,
and stepping back gracefully east
from the vibrant streets of the city,
the Museum will be the cultural anchor for this evolving neighborhood
and provide flexible and aspirational spaces
for contemporary artists
to realize their visions.