Today was the press preview for the new Whitney Museum on Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District. Judging by the enormous swarm of journalists packed into the lobby, the new building appears to be the object of considerable interest for local media.
My review: the new Whitney Museum is quite big, displays the art reasonably well, and has many windows and doorways and balconies to view the city in all four directions. It seems thoughtfully designed and fits in well with the new Meatpacking District. You will enjoy spending a few hours there on your next visit to the High Line.
Some of our local architecture critics have gently panned Renzo Piano's design for looking like something that "might have arrived in an Ikea flat pack and then been prodigiously misassembled," and for being an awkward pile that "looks ungainly and a little odd, vaguely nautical".
This is incorrect. The building does not look like a boat, or an Ikea cabinet. It looks like one of those salt sheds or sanitation buildings you see along the rivers—functional metal boxes built specifically to contain some important materials or necessary machines.
(Karin Jobst / The Whitney)
This is why the new building works. It does its job. Just like the cow-carving factory that adjoins it to the north, it's built for a function and it performs that function well. Sure, it's not flashy or elegant like a Frank Gehry metal onion, but there's plenty of that in New York already, and if you want to see some of it, you only have to walk a few blocks north on the High Line to the IAC Building and its many friends.
The galleries at the new Whitney are big (50,000 square feet of exhibition space!), with high ceilings and walls that can slide around to make different configurations. They're exactly what you'd expect from a $500MM museum built in 2015. The art collection looks great on the upper floors, and on the off chance you get bored, a window is never more than a room or two away with another insane view of the Hudson River or the skyscrapers of Manhattan.
The real draw for most visitors will be the massive three story deck on the east side of the building, from floors 5 through 8. It feels like a jungle gym, and offers all sorts of vertiginous, unique angles on the High Line below. I didn't see anyone getting naked at The Standard (NSFW), but if you're a pervert you might want to bring binoculars, because you can look right into a lot of the hotel rooms there. Go at dusk for the best light; all the buildings to the north, south, and east will be lit up by the sunset and it'll look great.
What else is there to say? The bathrooms are standard, and not as nice as the ones in the New Museum. The Danny Meyer restaurant and book shop on the ground floor seem perfectly normal. The elevators have some weird art in them. The coat check was fast and efficient. The stairwells have a nice deep spiral well where you can take some cool pictures. There are a bunch of places in the museum where you can glance into the offices and conservation rooms on the north side of the building; it's a fun peek into the behind-the-scenes-stuff.
This place is going to be a huge hit among tourists and local art-lovers alike, and it's a welcome addition to the city. If you don't like it because it's a little weird looking on the outside, remember that it's what's on the inside that counts. What's underneath it is a different story, though!
N.B.: The Whitney opens on May 1st. General admission will be $22, with pay-as-you-wish admission on Fridays 7 to 10pm. Hours through September will be Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays 10:30 to 6pm, and Thurs/Fri/Sat from 10:30am to 10pm. There will be a big block party on Saturday, May 2nd, with free admission, but tickets have already been given away online and only a limited number of people will be admitted free at the door, so you should probably plan to visit a different day.
