When Good Architecture Is Bad

NYC -- The plan was ambitious: create a $102 million addition that would link three, precious historic buildings while accommodating a surging number of visitors.
That’s what The Morgan Library and Museum in midtown Manhattan set out to accomplish in 2000 when it hired the famed Italian architect, Renzo Piano, to design a structure that would nearly double the size of the 100-year-old institution founded by banking mogul John Piermont Morgan and revered today by scholars and tourists. A quarter million people visit the museum each year.
Last April, the addition was completed after three years of construction and the razing of an enclosed garden court and small, 50-year-old office building. The museum has billed the new structure as an architectural triumph, one that serves the institution’s contemporary needs while paying tribute to the adjoining buildings – all historic landmarks. But while the 75,000-square-foot addition is no doubt elegant, it hardly works in perfect harmony with its aging siblings: a 1906 Italianate designed by Charles McKim, an annex built in 1928, and a brownstone that dates to the 1850s.
The addition’s entrance, which features cherry wood paneling, opens into a three-story, glass atrium framed by ivory steel beams. One can sip coffee in the new café while gazing at the sky or watching the exposed, glass elevator transport visitors to the new second-floor exhibit space or third-floor reading room. If the atrium gets too sunny, automatic shades come down over the windows. The atmosphere is light, airy and modern.
All of this is in sharp contrast to the older buildings, which are dark, heavy and ornate. In the McKim building, the library contains 15,000 books stacked three levels high and a marble fireplace nearly 10 feet tall. Over in the study, red velvet covers the chairs, the curtains, the couch. No surface is unadorned.
Moving between the new and the old can be jarring. It’s difficult not to like the addition; it simply feels good, like a breath of fresh air. But for an institution that aims to preserve history, its new building should give greater regard to the past. (JM)