Culture Chronicle

Artful Way to Expand a Museum
The New York times - April 15, 2010
By Roberta Smith

To expand downtown or not to expand downtown, this is the nagging, seemingly unanswerable question facing the Whitney Museum of American Art. The museum won't know the right answer for sure until it tries it; if it doesn't, it will never know. But it is right in asserting that it must do something to remain viable in what has become a cutthroat competition for museum visitors in New York.

Its 1966 Marcel Breuer building has all the disadvantages of starchitecture and few if any of the rewards. Even in a country where museums are rarely designed with art in mind, it stands out as relentlessly unforgiving to works of all styles and periods. If the stone floor doesn't kill, the oppressive overhead concrete structure almost undoubtedly will.

Unlike the Guggenheim, the Breuer building is not considered a must-see destination by tourists, regardless of what shows are on view. And Breuer's Brutalist bunker is not getting better with age, or inspiring artists to come up with new, exciting uses for it as Wright's spiral is. At the same time, the Whitney doesn't have enough space to have a big chunk of its collection serve as the draw, which is the case at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For the full article, click here