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The New Whitney Museum Looks Power Plant Chic
By
Jen Carlson
Published Oct 9, 2014
Modified Oct 9, 2014
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Oct 9, 2014
Modified Oct 9, 2014
Share
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The new Whitney Museum, which is currently being constructed by the southern end of the High Line, will finally open next year, four years after the ground breaking. The 8-story, Renzo Piano-designed building sits on Gansevoort Street between the Hudson and the High Line, and is the cultural cherry on top of the now transformed area.
So what will you be staring at when you take your Sunday stroll down the renovated elevated tracks? We swung by the area today, as the building is nearing completion (at least the exterior), and It kind of looks like... an Eastern European furnace factory? A giant refrigerator? The skull of a Transformer? A power plant? Rosie the robot? To be fair, the museum has to be careful with its window placement due to sunlight's deleterious effect on paintings and other artworks.
Once complete, the building will feature "a dramatically cantilevered plaza, or ‘largo’, a public space that serves as a kind of decompression chamber between street and museum... a main entrance lobby that also serves as a public gallery, a cafe, and and a 170-retractible seat theatre with double-height views over the Hudson River."
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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