The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an entrance problem: There is only one route into the sprawling Beaux-Arts building—from Fifth Avenue—which means not only that its lobby is often unpleasantly crowded, but also that there is little connection between the Manhattan museum and its backyard, Central Park.
But that will likely change when the Met’s new galleries of modern and contemporary art are completed later this decade. According to Thomas P. Campbell, the Met’s director, “One of my highest priorities in the renovation is to provide an entrance from the park.” A “back” entrance would allow visitors to spend time in the museum, visit the park, and then reenter the museum—without having to walk around the 2 million-square-foot building. The galleries will replace the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, designed in the 1980s by Kevin Roche of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, and are expected to be completed around 2020. (Three firms, all with museum experience, are said to be competing for the job.) Marcel Breuer’s Whitney Museum building, which the Met is now leasing, will house modern and contemporary art at least through the construction period.
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