After nearly two years of haggling, the board of directors at the Whitney Museum have approved plans to begin construction on a new building in the meatpacking district in Manhattan, to be completed by 2015. “Downtown is a new city, a new nation. Why shouldn’t the Whitney be the museum of record there?”said Leonard Lauder, the Whitney’s chairman emeritus and largest benefactor.
Lauder wasn't always so gung-ho however; the cosmetics heir donated $131 million in March 2008, but had been adamantly against the second site until recently. Now, having changed his mind (“there is no better time to build than now, with construction costs and interest rates at an all-time low,” he told the Times), the new Renzo Piano-designed site, to be located near the foot of the High Line, has a $680 million green light.
There will be collateral damage however: because of the size and scope of the project, the Whitney will most likely need to lease its Marcel Breuer-designed original home on Madison Avenue and East 75th Street. And they might just end up leasing it to the Met! An anonymous source told Art Info about the possible indecent museum proposal: “They’ve come to the realization they can’t run two places, and they really want to build downtown. Leonard has given all this money but will withdraw it if they get rid of the Madison Avenue building. This is a way of keeping both buildings and benefiting from it.”
