After Downtown Dreams, Guggenheim Plans to Expand in New York
02/10/2014.
[VIDEO] by Guggenheim Museum. [NY] USA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Once upon a time, New York was excited, entranced and anxious for a new Guggenheim Museum on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Can you even imagine it now? Half a million square feet of exhibition space, a new bastion of culture on the tip of the island.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim interior. (Courtesy the Guggenheim Foundation).
The Solomon R. Guggenheim's restored facade was revealed in fall 2008. Photography © David Heald. (Courtesy the Guggenheim Foundation)
However the 9/11 and the global economic downturn canceled the Frank Gehry-designed museum downtown. Since then, the Guggenheim Foundation has planned some outposts internationally as Abu Dhabi but all the action in New York has gone down at the current location on 88th Street.
Now, new news has come out and The Art Newspaper reports that it will move part of its staff and collection to a new location in an heretofore undisclosed part of town. Called the Collection Center, it sounds a bit less ambitious than the Frank Gehry blueprintsit, is described by the Guggenheim as “one efficient, multi-use building” with a “dynamic public-programming component” aimed at New Yorkers.
And, also: “The Guggenheim plans to research ‘productive and hospitable office space designs.'” and he adds, “It is also considering whether to hold a competition to find an architect.” "Ari Wiseman, the deputy director of the Guggenheim, tells us the open competition, the first in the Guggenheim’s history, was “typically Finnish”. He says the Guggenheim, contrary to many people’s expectations, does not seek to “replicate what happened in Bilbao”.
