Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art was designed by architect Marcel Breuer (1902–1981). To design a third home for the Museum,which had gradually migrated northward from its original location on West Eighth Street to West 54th Street—Breuer worked with Hamilton Smith, creating a strong modernist statement in a neighborhood of traditional limestone, brownstone, and brick row houses and postwar apartment buildings. Considered somber, heavy, and even brutal at the time of its completion in 1966, Breuer’s building is now recognized as daring, strong, and innovative. It has come to be regarded as one of New York City’s most notable buildings and identified with the Whitney’s approach to art.
Marcel Lajos Breuer was born on 21 May 1902 in the city of Pecs, Hungary. In his early years he studied at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau in the twenties. He was able to meet the great modernist architects, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Walter Gropius who influenced his designs and professional life.
Later he joined Harvard’s architecture faculty. On his own in New York in 1946, Breuer saw a practice that had been essentially residential finally expand into institutional buildings with the UNESCO Headquarters commission in Paris in 1952 and the first of many buildings for Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN two years later.
Breuer's long list of accomplishments include:
- The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
- IBM’s La Gaude Laboratory, Nice, France
- The Departments of HUD and HEW, Washington, DC
- (town of) Flaine, Flaine, France
- The Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, DC
- The invention of tubular steel furniture.
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Building information
Designer: Marcel Lajos Breuer
Program type: Museum
Square footage: 76,830
Project budget: $72/sq.ft.
Project Address:
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
New York, NY 10021
Building analysis
The challange of building a museum is creating an interesting and flexible architecture while not taking away from the art for a relatively modest budget and footprint of 100' x 125'. In addition the building was to reflect the concept of the art collection. Breuer's decision to use basic materials and simplified details appealed to the board of directors. The materials used were concrete block, granite, wood, glass, slate and steel.
Detail analysis
The key to the interiors is the hanging panel track system. The design owes it's flexibility to the ceiling grid system that has rail like "tracks" both horizontally and vertically. The building has relatively few interior walls so the panels can be arranged as needed for shows and events. When originally designed the panels hung from the steel rail by a metal cleat at the top of the panel. The panels were made of plywood with a painted finish.
The concept was innovative but the design failed in the field. As the building setteled the panels became difficult to keep level. In addition the plywood panels were heavy and became heavier due to years of repainting. The panels were eventually removed and the museum now erects new walls as needed for shows and events.
The detail is an example of current panel track systems shown on the Whitney's ceiling grid. Many types of panels and track hardware are used to meet the needs of different installations. The panels move in a steel track on horizontal wheels. Panels are hinged together at the sides and pulled along a single track, hinged book style or they can be individual panels with the flexibility to turn corners. They can be motorized or manual.
The panels can be ordered with acoustical material, hollow metal, or glass inserts. Finishes can be any flexible material that can be adhered to the base or fabric that can be stretched and mounted with a reveal on the sides of the panel.
The panels also have options for flexible sound barriers at the bottom and top.
References
- Wilk, Christopher, Modernism 1914 – 1939 Designing a New World, V&A Publications, London, 2006
- http://www.marcelbreuer.org/Main.html Recalled January 31, 2010 , Gateje, Robert F.
- http://www.whitney.org/About/BreuerBuilding Recalled January 31, 2010
- Anderson, Maxwell; Hays, K Michael; Stoller, Ezra, Whitney Museum of American Art, Princeton Architectural Press, 2000, New York, NY, 2000
- Biddle, Flora Miller, The Whitney Women and the Museum They Made: A Family Memoir, Arcade, New York, 2001
- Hartt, Frederick, Frederick Hartt Art, Thrid Edition, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1989
- http://hufcor.com/ Recalled February 15, 2010
- http://kwik-wall.com/ Recalled February 15, 2010
Notes
Student contributions
- Amy Doherty, Spring, 2010
