Whitney expansion to be scrapped?

Whitney Museum of American Art via NYTimes

That's the possibility floated by an article in the NYT today. The article, "Dia Art Foundation Abandons Plans for a Museum at High Line," is primarily a report on just that: that Dia will not build a small museum at 820 Washington Street in Gansevoort. But there's also some interesting info on the proposed Whitney expansion:

"Officials familiar with the High Line discussions said that the Whitney Museum of American Art had emerged as a high-profile contender.

Trustees at the Whitney are mulling whether to proceed with an addition designed by the architect Renzo Piano, those officials said. That plan calls for a series of glass bridges to connect the museum’s original 1966 Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue at 75th Street to a new nine-story tower. The officials said they did not want to be quoted for fear of being perceived as pre-empting a decision by the Whitney board.

Asked whether the Whitney was considering backing out of the Piano expansion in favor of a site at the High Line, a museum spokeswoman, Jan Rothschild, said yesterday, “The Whitney is keeping its expansion options open,” adding, “We are considering several sites for additional space and have had discussions with the city about the Gansevoort/Washington site.”

She declined to comment further, but the site abandoned by Dia is at 820 Washington Street, at Gansevoort.

Amid sharply escalating construction costs, the Whitney trustees are said to be reconsidering whether, after having to raise several hundred million dollars, the museum will end up getting the kind of space it needs.

Officials familiar with the talks said Whitney trustees and staff members were discussing the possibility of opening a more modest satellite museum downtown, where the Whitney could have larger-scale spaces for cutting-edge artworks as well as attract the young, hip audience who frequents the art and nightclub scene. They emphasized that the talks were preliminary.

Were the museum to back out of the Piano addition, it would be the third time that it has commissioned a celebrity architect to design a major expansion to its landmark building, only to renege. A $37 million design by Michael Graves was jettisoned in 1985; in 2003 the Whitney backed out of a $200 million addition by Rem Koolhaas.

Mr. Piano’s project met with heated challenges from preservationists who said a brownstone facade on Madison, part of the Upper East Side Historic District, would be eliminated to make way for the new entrance.

The architect narrowed the entry, and after a series of hearings, his plan was approved by the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals in July."

Very interesting.

I'm not going to get into it too much myself, but here's the history of the plan with plenty of opinions pro and con embedded within the articles.

Here's a model of the plan with the original Marcel Breuer building on the left:

Renzo Piano Building Workshop via NYT

And here's Nicolai Ouroussoff's mostly positive critique of the plan after it was announced in the Fall of 2004: "Whitney's New Plan: A Respectful Approach".

Ouroussoff can be somewhat sympathetic to preservation (at least he was with 2 Columbus Circle), but sure hates when it gets in the way of an architect's vision:

"Who doesn't want to preserve the city's architectural legacy? But great design is never cautious; it cannot arise amid a climate of fear. The risk is that the building will ultimately be too subdued, as if it is trying too hard to fit in. If the city is to get the full benefit of Mr. Piano's talent, the Whitney will have to grant him the
freedom to follow his ideas, wherever they lead. "

Once the plans were announced in early '05, the Historic Districts Council weighed in with their disapproval.

The following articles from the NYT traced the progress of the plan in 2005:

Fierce Battle Over Plan to Expand the Whitney (2/05)

Landmarks Panel Questions Whitney Plan (3/05)

Revised Whitney Plan Wins Panel's Approval (5/05)

And here's Ouroussoff's reaction to the LPC's decision:

Commission Preserves the Past at the Cost of the Future (5/05)

Finally, the Times come back to the subject a month later to summarize:

Brownstone That Has Eight Lives to Go (6/05)

Overall, it's a pretty interesting preservation/lofty architecture battle.

If the Whitney eventually does decide to move to the High Line site, they will undoubtedly be lambasted again for failing to expand their current museum. But it would save a brownstone row's integrity as well as the singular distinctness that is Breuer's Whitney while only costing the potential of a remarkable new design.

We'll just have to wait and see.