Whitney Museum Construction Continues to Annoy Neighbors
Whitney Designs Downtown as Neighbors Fume
August 16, 2007
by Alec Appelbaum
Is the Whitney Museum of American Art’s apparent construction curse site-specific? Neighbors of the institution’s Brutalist home on Manhattan’s posh Upper East Side have rejected three ambitious proposals in 21 years to expand Marcel Breuer’s 1966 building. Now they’re chiding the institution for construction work that it has failed to do—even as plans for a new branch elsewhere show signs of moving ahead.
Renzo Piano is the latest in a line of high profile architects who have tried in vain to expand Breuer’s inverted ziggurat; the others were Rem Koolhaas and Michael Graves. Two years ago, Piano designed a nine-story gallery tower and civic plaza adjacent to the existing building—a plan that would have entailed demolishing several Whitney-owned brownstones within the Upper East Side Historic District. The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission approved this scheme, but mounting pressure from neighborhood residents and preservationists prompted the Whitney to dispatch Piano to a new location in late 2006.
Although they’ve been spared the wrecking ball, the brownstones continue to rankle neighborhood residents.