This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Modern Architectures of North America

1 This page has annotations:

Contents of this annotation:

This page is referenced by:

Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Transition to Modernism
In 1870, the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art brought artwork and art education to both American citizens and international visitors. Through centuries, Metropolitan Museum of Art has been through continuous changes since the ground was first broken in Central Park. From Henry James' idea of "palace" in the park to the original Victorian Gothic building (by Caux and Mould) to the elegant Beaux-Arts classicism (by Richard Morris Hunt's and Mckim, Mead and White) and to the modernist glass wing(by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associate), the size of the museum has been greatly expanded and various additions are made surround the original structure, among them are Robert Lehman Wing, The Sackler Wing, The American Wing, Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, and Henry R. Kravis Wing. Due to those changes in architecture, the museum is considered a hodgepodge of buildings constructed at different times and as parts of difference schemes. In this page, one will see how the Metropolitan Museum of Art expanded and evolved over time, how the museum adapted to the constantly changing world with each architectural program, and how it serves to the public. (Portions of the existing building that have particularly significant historical features are Hunt's Great Hall, Hunt's and Mckim's Fifth Avenue facades, Weston's south facade, etc.)

Introduction
The Metropolitan Museum was incorporated on April 13, 1870. In the aftermath of the Civil War, New York and the rest of the nation were expanding rapidly in an economic boom that lasted until the Panic of 1873. It was an era notable for grand and creative projects, such as the Atlantic Cable, the Brooklyn Bridge and the founding of many great cultural institutions of the nation. It was also a time of blatant corruption. For example, the scandal of the administration of Ulysses S. Grant; the stock-manipulating schemes in 1869 and the depredations of the New York City treasury in 1870 (Heckscher).

Although the New York City'es liberal-minded reform leaders had talked about founding an art museum for years, there was no call for action until 1969 when publisher Geroge P. Putnam, extolled New York's "noble" Central Park as the city's "worthy and creditable" academy of art and the "treasures" of its historical society (Heckscher). Therefore, the Central Park becomes an ideal place to locate this new national institution attracting works of art from the world.
The Central Park as Site
In the 1870s, the Upper East Side was still only sparsely settled. The streets have been superimposed on abandoned farmland but were not yet fully paved. Among decaying rural structures, clusters of brownstone townhouses had begun to sprout like weeds. The popular part of the city was to the south of Fifth Avenue, where an unbroken line of handsome mansions. It is no wonder that most of the museum's trustees thought the Museum should be located in the center of this desirable area. The decision of the final location is more political. There are three choices for the site of a large museum building: The Central Park, Reservoir Square and Manhattan Square.

A majority of the Museum's trustees favored the Reservoir Square site, because it was in the heart of the most popular residential district. Such a place near the developed part of the city seemed ideal. Compared to the Reservoir Square, Manhattan Square (from Seventy-seventh to Eighty-first Streets between Eight and Ninth Avenues, in 1864 made part of the Central Park*) was considered too far uptown and too far west.

The ultimate decision about the Museum's location was to be made by the eleven commissioners of "The Central Park", who in 1857 had been given full power over all aspect of its management and design. The treasurer Andrew Green and the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted committed to the idea of the of the park as an educational center, and through their influence, park regulations were amended to allow "for the establishment or maintenance, within the limits of said Central Park, of museums... collections of natural history, observatories or works of art."

Work Cited
[1] http://www.metmuseum.org/press/general-information/2005/a-brief-history-of-the-museum
[2] https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?hl=en_US&app=mp&mid=zmD33IpnL1sI.kJXZzAX_M9E0
[3] https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?hl=en_US&app=mp&mid=zmD33IpnL1sI.kJXZzAX_M9E0