Art Museum rolling out its dramatic Gehry expansion

 

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is preparing to publicly exhibit for the first time its plans for the largest renovation and construction project in its history, one that will transform the grand, beloved, cramped building into what officials believe will be a surprisingly spacious, airy, and light-filled vessel to display some of the world's greatest art.

 

Should all go as envisioned, virtually no changes will be visible from outside the building, aside from staircase enclosures mandated by the city's fire code, and a redesigned landscape leading to the west entrance looking out over Fairmount Park.

 

Yet the project will eventually add 78,000 square feet of new gallery space, including 55,000 square feet carved from the schist under the terrace facing the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

 

"Making a Classic Modern: Frank Gehry's Master Plan for the Philadelphia Museum of Art," an exhibition detailing the museum's future with models, site plans, digital images, and floor plans, will be on view from July 1 to Sept. 1 in the museum's Dorrance Galleries.

 

Developed by the incorrigibly flamboyant Gehry, the Los Angeles architect known for the titanium swirls of L.A.'s Disney Concert Hall and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the master plan for the Philadelphia museum's transformation will achieve its goal via spatial legerdemain and natural light flooding previously dark or enclosed (or even nonexistent) spaces.

 

"For me, one of the keys to this project is basically the understanding and respect for the character of this building," said Timothy Rub, art museum director. "For those who think of Frank Gehry as the architect of the Disney Concert Hall and Bilbao, I suspect they will want to think again."

 

Rub said he could not put a price tag on all the remaining work at this point, although the initial renovations and demolition will run in the range of $150 million to $160 million.

 

The galleries under the terrace will constitute a vast expansion, and provide Gehry with an opportunity for some dramatic, albeit hidden, bravado. This space - with a saddleback ceiling rising as high as 28 feet - is seen as critical to providing a home for the museum's growing collection of modern and contemporary art, plus holdings in American and Asian art.

 

An additional 23,000 square feet of light-filled gallery space will be added by simply moving mostly back-office operations from the vast wings that extend out on either side of Lenfest Hall, the museum's westside welcome center.

 

The total of about 78,000 square feet of new gallery space will constitute roughly a 60 percent increase over what is currently available. The museum has more than 227,000 artworks in its collection.

 

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