A view of the new Whitney from the Hudson River, New York (left) and the upper levels of the building
Why did you move from Madison Avenue to the Meatpacking District? In 2007, with the help of the City of New York and the Mayor Michael Bloomberg administration, the Whitney Museum identified a site on a largely abandoned lot in the Meatpacking District. This site offered extraordinary advantages: a large, horizontal space ideal for creating column-free museum galleries; proximity to Chelsea’s gallery district; open views of the Hudson River; adjacency to the High Line Park that would ensure considerable foot traffic; and the opportunity for the building to be viewed from 360 degrees. We were also excited to return to the same neighbourhood where Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney founded the museum 85 years ago. This site, in particular, is connected to the history of American art. In the area, for example, Ad Reinhardt had a studio on Gansevoort Street, Willem de Kooning painted very nearby, Gordon Matta- Clark did his famous pier cut across the
©CYBERTREK 2015 AM 3 2015
street. Edward Hopper painted in the neighbourhood. Jasper Johns, Lawrence Weiner and Julian Schnabel all have studios in the neighbourhood, among others.”
What can you bring to the area? There are several wonderful arts organisations nearby including the Kitchen and White Columns and the Whitney looks forward to being another cultural resource for the community.
Adam D Weinberg has been the Alice Pratt Brown director of New York’s Whitney Museum since October 2003
Why did you want a brand new building? Initially we wanted to expand on site, adjacent to the Marcel Breuer-designed building we’d occupied on Madison Avenue since 1966. We undertook a couple of design schemes, but we ultimately decided there wasn’t enough space to build what we needed. The site necessitated a design that would have been too vertical and the Breuer building was too hard to complement Building a museum from the ground up is a rare opportunity and it allowed us to design a building that responds to
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PHOTO: SCOTT RUDD
PHOTO: NIC LEHOUX
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