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The Metropolitan Museum Of Art's Facade Has Never Been Completed
By
Jen Carlson
Published Aug 29, 2012
Modified Aug 29, 2012
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Aug 29, 2012
Modified Aug 29, 2012
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Photo via Listen Missy's flickr
Did you know the Met is an unfinished work of art? The Metropolitan Museum of Art's building on Fifth Avenue stands proud with giant columns in the front, and atop those, four giant pyramids of stone slabs. These pyramids were originally meant to be sculpted, but the plan never came to be.
According to an old NY Times blurb, architect Richard Morris Hunt wanted 31 statues on the facade of the museum, but he died before specifying what those designs above the columns should be. His son suggested they be carved into representations of Music, Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture... but they remain untouched square blocks today.
According to Daytonian in Manhattan, Hunt had already lost his white marble to Indiana limestone during a late 1890s depression, and then in 1901, a year before the museum was finished, there was another financial panic. As money ran out, the blocks went uncarved, and "the same fate befell the huge circular stone blanks in the Great Hall which Hunt intended to be sculpted out as portraits." The unfinished blocks are a little rough around the edges, but are accepted as part of the design today. [via Boing Boing]
Tagged
architecture
history
metropolitan museum of art
the met
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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