Shop: Brooklyn Museum: Art Spaces

Brooklyn Museum:
Building for the Future

The Brooklyn Museum is the 2nd largest art museum in New York City and one of the cultural treasures of the city. It is housed in a 560,000 square-foot landmark Beaux-Arts building designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1893. The immense structure that the architects envisioned would, if fully realized, have been the largest museum building in the world. Ultimately, however, only 1/6 of the design was completed. As a result, over the years the original building -a glorious fragment- has been contunually adapted and redeveloped to meet changing needs.

This book traces the step-by-step execution of the McKim, Mead & White design and the building's subsequent evolution. It focuses on the progressive campaign of renovation and renewal which the Museum has embarked upon in recent years. The book features archival images of the building in its first decades and the changing look of the galleries since the early years of the 20th century. It culminates in a presentation of the new entrance pavilion - a transparent, light-filled, and seemingly weightless structure that makes this historical edifice truly a building for the future.

2004; 4" x 6.5"; paper.