Renzo Piano Building Workshop bridges a historic structure and a grand public space with its trademark Classicism at The Art Institute of Chicago's Modern Wing.
Here we go again—another art museum, another building by Renzo Piano. With the completion of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum in Los Angeles last year and plans for an overhaul of the Harvard Art Museum in Boston and a new branch of the Whitney Museum in New York City proceeding, the Pritzker Prize–winner has enjoyed a near monopoly among architects for the highly coveted building type, especially here in the U.S. So much so that interest in the buildings themselves has begun to wane. Ten years in the making, the new wing at The Art Institute of Chicago has been caught in the middle of that dwindling enthusiasm. Commissioned in 1999, the same year Piano was hired for the High Museum expansion in Atlanta [record, November 2005, page 130], the Modern Wing finally opened its doors in May. But given the sheer size of it, and its prime location between the Art Institute’s landmark structure on Michigan Avenue and the public paradise of Millennium Park, the new wing is not just another building.
Originally intended as a small addition on the southern end of the museum’s site, as plans for Millennium Park firmed up, the building’s location shifted to Monroe Street, across from the new civic center and directly facing the Pritzker Pavilion, Frank Gehry’s billowing outdoor concert venue. “Having seen the Menil Collection and his other museums, we knew Piano could make great spaces for art,” recalls James Wood, the Art Institute’s former director. “But he also had a record as a planner beyond individual buildings. The Modern Wing needs to bind the Art Institute to the heart of the city.”
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