HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071
Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...
on the corner of East 89th Street on the
Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...
of
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of counties in New York, origin ...
in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of
Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
,
Post-Impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction aga ...
, early Modern, and
contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic c ...
and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. The museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, Hilla von Rebay. The museum adopted its current name in 1952, three years after the death of its founder
Solomon R. Guggenheim Solomon Robert Guggenheim (February 2, 1861 – November 3, 1949) was an American businessman and art collector. He is best known for establishing the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Gugg ...
. The museum's building, a landmark work of 20th-century architecture designed by
Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
, drew controversy for the unusual shape of its display spaces and took 15 years to design and build; it was completed in 1959. It consists of a six-story, bowl-shaped main gallery to the south, a four-story "monitor" to the north, and a ten-story annex to the northeast. The main gallery contains a six-story helical ramp that extends along its perimeter, as well as a central ceiling skylight. The Thannhauser Collection is housed within the top three stories of the monitor, and there are additional galleries in the annex and a learning center in the basement. The building underwent expansion and extensive renovations from 1990 to 1992, when the annex was built, and it was renovated again from 2005 to 2008. The museum's collection has grown over the decades and is founded upon several important private collections, beginning with that of Solomon R. Guggenheim. The collection, which includes around 8,000 works , is shared with sister museums in the Spanish city of
Bilbao ) , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = 275 px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao , pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe , pushpin_map_caption ...
and elsewhere. In 2013, nearly 1.2 million people visited the museum, and it hosted the most popular exhibition in New York City."Top 100 Art Museum Attendance"
''
The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...
'', 2014, pp. 11 and 15, accessed July 8, 2014.


History


Early years and Hilla Rebay

Solomon R. Guggenheim Solomon Robert Guggenheim (February 2, 1861 – November 3, 1949) was an American businessman and art collector. He is best known for establishing the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Gugg ...
, a member of a wealthy mining family, had been collecting works of the
old masters In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...
since the 1890s. In 1926, he met artist Hilla von Rebay,"Exhibition of Works Reflecting the Evolution of the Guggenheim's Collection Opens in Bilbao"
artdaily.org, 2009. Retrieved April 18, 2012.
who introduced him to European
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical D ...
art, in particular abstract art that she felt had a spiritual and utopian aspect (
non-objective art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...
). Guggenheim completely changed his collecting strategy, turning to the work of
Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj;  – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
, among others. He began to display his collection to the public at his apartment in the
Plaza Hotel The Plaza Hotel (also known as The Plaza) is a luxury hotel and condominium apartment building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is located on the western side of Grand Army Plaza, after which it is named, just west of Fifth Avenue, a ...
in New York City."Biography: Solomon R. Guggenheim"
Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved March 8, 2012.
Guggenheim and Rebay initially considered building a museum at
Rockefeller Center Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th Street and 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 14 original Art Deco buildings, commissioned by the Rockefeller family, span th ...
in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the List of counties in New York, origin ...
. As the collection grew, Guggenheim established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, in 1937, to foster the appreciation of
modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tra ...
. The foundation's first venue for the display of art, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, opened in 1939 under the direction of Rebay, at 24 East 54th Street in midtown Manhattan. Under Rebay's guidance, Guggenheim sought to include in the collection the most important examples of non-objective art available at the time by early modernists.Calnek, Anthony, et al. ''The Guggenheim Collection'', pp. 39–40, New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2006 Guggenheim wanted to display the collection at the
1939 New York World's Fair The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purcha ...
in
Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
, but Rebay advocated, instead, for a more permanent location in Manhattan. By the early 1940s, the foundation had accumulated such a large collection of avant-garde paintings that the need for a permanent museum building had become apparent. Rebay wanted to establish the permanent building before the octogenarian Guggenheim died.


Design process

In 1943, Rebay and Guggenheim wrote a letter to
Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
asking him to design a structure to house and display the collection. Rebay thought the 76-year-old Wright was dead, but Guggenheim's wife Irene Rothschild Guggenheim knew better and suggested that Rebay contact him. Wright accepted the opportunity to experiment with his "organic" style in an urban setting, saying that he had never seen a museum that was properly designed. Wright was hired to design the building in June 1943. He was to receive a 10 percent commission on the project, which was expected to cost at least $1 million. It took Wright 15 years, more than 700 sketches, and six sets of working drawings to create and complete the museum, after a series of difficulties and delays; the cost eventually doubled from the initial estimate. Rebay had conceived of a space that would facilitate a new way of looking at modern art. She wrote to Wright that "each of these great masterpieces should be organized into space, and only you ... would test the possibilities to do so. ... I want a temple of spirit, a monument!" The critic
Paul Goldberger Paul Goldberger (born in 1950) is an American author, architecture critic and lecturer. He is known for his "Sky Line" column in ''The New Yorker''. Biography Shortly after starting as a reporter at ''The New York Times'' in 1972, he was assign ...
later wrote that Wright's modernist building was a catalyst for change, making it "socially and culturally acceptable for an architect to design a highly expressive, intensely personal museum. In this sense almost every museum of our time is a child of the Guggenheim." The Guggenheim was the only museum designed by Wright; its urban location required Wright to design the building in a vertical rather than a horizontal form, far different from his earlier, rural works. Since Wright was not licensed as an architect in New York, he relied on Arthur Cort Holden, of the architectural firm Holden, McLaughlin & Associates, to deal with New York City's Board of Standards and Appeals. From 1943 to early 1944, Wright produced four differing designs. One of the plans had a hexagonal shape and level floors for the galleries, though all the others had circular schemes and used a ramp continuing around the building. In his notes, Wright indicated that he wanted a "well proportioned floor space from bottom to top – a wheel chair going around and up and down". His original concept was called an inverted "
ziggurat A ziggurat (; Cuneiform: 𒅆𒂍𒉪, Akkadian: ', D-stem of ' 'to protrude, to build high', cognate with other Semitic languages like Hebrew ''zaqar'' (זָקַר) 'protrude') is a type of massive structure built in ancient Mesopotamia. It ha ...
", because it resembled the steep steps on the ziggurats built in ancient
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
. Several architecture professors have speculated that the helical ramp and glass dome of Giuseppe Momo's 1932 staircase at the
Vatican Museums The Vatican Museums ( it, Musei Vaticani; la, Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several o ...
was an inspiration for Wright's ramp and atrium.


Site selection and announcement of plans

Wright expected that the museum would be located in
lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...
. Instead, in March 1944, Rebay and Guggenheim acquired a site on Manhattan's
Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...
, at the corner of 89th Street and the Museum Mile section of
Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...
, overlooking
Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...
. They had considered numerous locations in Manhattan, as well as in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, overlooking the
Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between New ...
. Guggenheim felt that the Fifth Avenue site's proximity to Central Park was important; the park afforded relief from the noise, congestion and concrete of the city. Wright's preliminary sketches fit the site nearly perfectly, although the site was about narrower than what Wright had anticipated. Guggenheim approved Wright's sketches in mid-1944. Wright called the planned building an "Archeseum ... a building in which to see the highest". Wright's designs for the museum building were announced in July 1945, at which point the museum was expected to cost $1 million and be completed within a year. The main feature of the structure was a main gallery with a helical ramp, surrounding a
lightwell In architecture, a lightwell,light well, light-well sky-well,skywell, sky well or air shaft is an unroofed or roofed external space provided within the volume of a large building to allow light and air to reach what would otherwise be a dark or ...
with a skylight. Guests would board an elevator to reach the top of the ramp; a second, steeper, ramp would serve as an emergency exit. There would be a movie theater in the basement; an elevator tower topped by an observatory; a smaller building featuring a smaller theater; storage space, a library, and a cafe. Preliminary plans also included apartments for Guggenheim and Rebay, but these plans were scrapped. Guggenheim acquired an additional parcel of land on 88th Street that July. Wright built a model of the museum at
Taliesin Taliesin ( , ; 6th century AD) was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the ''Book of Taliesin''. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the courts o ...
, his home in Wisconsin, and displayed the model at the Plaza Hotel that September.


Difficulties

The building's construction was delayed, first because of material shortages caused by World War II, then by increasing construction costs after the war ended. By late 1946, Guggenheim and Rebay had redesigned the basement theater to accommodate concerts. Rebay and Wright disagreed over several aspects of the design, such as the means by which the paintings were to be mounted, although they both wanted the design to "reflect the unity of art and architecture". Wright continued to modify his plans during the late 1940s, largely because of concerns over the building's lighting, and he created another model of the museum in 1947. The collection was greatly expanded in 1948 through the purchase of art dealer Karl Nierendorf's estate of some 730 objects. Progress remained stalled through the late 1940s, and William Muschenheim renovated an existing townhouse on the site, at 1071 Fifth Avenue, for the museum's use. Guggenheim's health was in decline, but he refused Wright's offer to downsize the planned building so it could be completed during Guggenheim's lifetime. After Guggenheim died in 1949, members of the
Guggenheim family The Guggenheim family ( ) is an American-Jewish family known for making their fortune in the mining industry, in the early 20th century, especially in the United States and South America. After World War I, many family members withdrew from th ...
on the foundation's board of directors had personal and philosophical differences with Rebay."Biography: Hilla Rebay"
Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved March 8, 2012.
Under Rebay's leadership, the museum had become what Aline B. Saarinen described as an "esoteric, occult place in which a mystic language was spoken". Some of the museum's staff and trustees wished to oust Rebay and cancel Wright's design. Wright, however, persuaded several members of the Guggenheim family to acquire additional land on Fifth Avenue so his design could be developed in full. To accommodate the growing collection, in August 1951 the Guggenheim Foundation acquired an apartment building at 1 East 88th Street to remodel for museum use. It now owned a continuous frontage on Fifth Avenue from 88th to 89th Street. This prompted Wright to redesign the new building yet again, proposing a multi-story annex with apartments behind the museum. The foundation also announced that the museum would start exhibiting "objective" works of art, as well as older artwork. Rebay, who disagreed with this policy, resigned as director of the museum in March 1952. Nevertheless, she left a portion of her personal collection to the foundation in her will."Guggenheim Museum New York"
''Encyclopedia of Art'', visual-arts-cork.com. Retrieved April 18, 2012.
Shortly after Rebay resigned, Wright filed plans for the building, which was projected to cost $2 million. The museum was renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952.


Sweeney era

James Johnson Sweeney James Johnson Sweeney (1900–1986) was an American curator, and writer about modern art. Sweeney graduated from Georgetown University in 1922. From 1935 to 1946, he was curator for the Museum of Modern Art. He was the second director of the Solo ...
was appointed as the museum's director in October 1952. Sweeney expanded the foundation's collecting criteria, rejecting Rebay's dismissal of "objective" painting and sculpture. He also started exhibiting some of the works that had been placed in storage under Rebay's leadership. In 1953, the museum hosted a retrospective of Wright's work entitled "Sixty Years of Living Architecture", housed in a temporary pavilion that Wright had designed.


Construction and opening

Sweeney and Wright had a strained relationship, as they disagreed over basic elements of the planned building. Sweeney, who believed that the museum's architecture should be subservient to the art collection, forced Wright to redesign the museum to accommodate more offices and storage facilities. The building's lighting issues were a significant point of contention between the two men. In addition, the
New York City Department of Buildings The New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) is the department of the New York City government that enforces the city's building codes and zoning regulations, issues building permits, licenses, registers and disciplines certain construction t ...
(DOB) rejected Wright's application for a construction permit in 1953 because the design did not meet building codes. Wright tasked Holden with ensuring that the design met building codes and published revised drawings in 1954 and 1956. Museum staff nevertheless complained that Wright's design did not provide enough storage or laboratory space. To save money, Wright modified the design again in 1955, though these savings were canceled out by increasing construction costs. Four general contractors submitted construction bids in late 1954, and the foundation ultimately hired the Euclid Construction Corporation. The museum rented the Oliver Gould Jennings House at 7 East 72nd Street and relocated there before construction began. On May 6, 1956, demolition of the existing buildings on the site began. The DOB issued a construction permit on May 23, and work on the museum building began on August 14. Wright opened an office in New York City to oversee the construction, which he felt required his personal attention, and appointed his son-in-law
William Wesley Peters William Wesley Peters (June 12, 1912 – July 17, 1991) was an American architect and engineer, apprentice to and protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright. Early life Wes, as he was known to friends and associates, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana on Jun ...
to supervise the day-to-day work. In practice, neither Wright nor Peters visited the site frequently, so Holden's William Short ended up managing the project. Sweeney wanted the new museum to allow "building up a collection which offers up a standard of judgment". He wished to change the color scheme, level out the sloping walls, and remove the clerestory windows, which led to prolonged disputes with Wright. By early 1958, Harry F. Guggenheim had to handle all communications between Sweeney and Wright, who would not speak to each other. The building
topped out In building construction, topping out (sometimes referred to as topping off) is a builders' rite traditionally held when the last beam (or its equivalent) is placed atop a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony is often parlay ...
in May 1958, and the scaffolding on the facade was removed by that August. In the meantime, Wright published drawings of the design in several architectural magazines, as he feared that the design would be compromised after his death. Against Wright's request, Sweeney painted the walls white, and he hung paintings from metal bars instead of placing them directly on the walls. The building was Wright's last major work; he died in April 1959, six months before its opening."Art: Last Monument"
''Time''. November 2, 1959.
The building soft-opened for members of the media on October 20, 1959. It was formally dedicated the next day, drawing 600 visitors per hour. The building's design was generally able to accommodate the retrospectives and temporary exhibits that the museum hosted over the years.


Messer era

Sweeney resigned as the museum's director in July 1960, citing philosophical differences with the board of trustees. H. H. Arnason took over as the museum's temporary director. Arnason launched "the first survey of Abstract Expressionism in a New York museum" during his brief time as director. Thomas M. Messer, director of the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, succeeded Sweeney as director of the museum in January 1961; he worked under Sweeney, who continued to run the foundation. Messer stayed for 27 years, the longest tenure of any director of a major New York art institution. Under Messer's leadership, the museum pivoted toward more contemporary artists, including those from Europe and Latin America. Messer was not considered "an especially controversial director", though he also did not adhere to "the blockbuster school of exhibiting".


1960s

When Messer joined the Guggenheim, the museum's ability to present artworks was still doubted because of the tilted and curved walls. Russell, John
"Director of Guggenheim Retiring After 27 Years"
''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', November 5, 1987. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
Almost immediately after becoming director, in 1962, Messer put on a large exhibition that combined the Guggenheim's paintings with
sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
s on loan from the Hirshhorn collection. In particular, there were difficulties installing three-dimensional sculptures because the slope of the floor, and the curvature of the walls could combine to produce vexing optical illusions. Though the combination proved generally to work well in the Guggenheim, Messer recalled that, at the time, "I was scared. I half felt that this would be my last exhibition." Messer had staged a smaller sculpture exhibition the previous year, in which he discovered how to compensate for the space's unusual geometry by constructing special plinths at a particular angle, but this was impossible for one piece, an
Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his ...
mobile whose wire inevitably hung at a true plumb vertical. Messer acquired a private collection from art dealer Justin Thannhauser in 1963. Following this acquisition, the Guggenheim Museum hired Peters to renovate the monitor's second floor. Thannhauser's collection was displayed within the monitor after the renovation was completed in 1965. The foundation auctioned off artwork from the 15th and 16th centuries, which was incompatible with the museum's modern-art collection. Rebay, who died in 1967, bequeathed over 600 artworks to the Guggenheim, although the museum did not receive the collection until 1971. To raise money for further acquisitions, such as the works in Rebay's collections, the Guggenheim also sold off some modern artwork, including several Kandinsky works. To accommodate the expanding collection, in 1963, the Guggenheim announced plans for a four-story annex, which the
New York City Board of Standards and Appeals The New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) is an administrative office of the New York City government. It is a non-mayoral executive agency and is not part of the state Unified Court System. Administrative trials n ...
approved the next year. The annex was downsized to two stories in 1966 due to complaints from local residents, and it was completed in 1968. This freed up space on the top two levels of the main gallery, which had been used as workshops and storage space ever since the building had opened. Museum officials opened the top levels to the public in 1968.


1970s and 1980s

In 1971, with increasing costs and decreasing endowment income, the Guggenheim recorded a large deficit for the first time in its history. Additionally, although Wright had included space for a cafe at the southern end of the museum building, the cafe had never opened because the space had instead been used by the conservation and framing departments. The foundation proposed adding a lobby and restaurant in the museum's driveway area in early 1973 but had difficulty agreeing on the plans, which were revised that November. As part of the project, designed by Donald E. Freed, the museum closed its driveway and added a dining area and bookstore there. Amid a growing operating deficit, as well as a shortage of exhibit space, the Guggenheim announced in 1977 that it would raise $20 million over the following five years. Museum officials also planned to expand the annex on 89th Street. Messer became director of the Guggenheim Foundation in 1980 and continued to also serve as the museum director, promoting two curators to directorial positions. The Guggenheim renovated the Thannhauser wing in the early 1980s. Following these changes, John Russell of ''The New York Times'' wrote that the Thannhauser Collection "may now be said to be the equivalent of the Frick in the domain of modern art." " Works & Process", a series of performances at the Guggenheim, commenced in 1984. In 1982
Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman & Associates Architects LLC (formerly Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects) is a New York City-based architectural firm founded in 1967 by architects Charles Gwathmey and Robert Siegel. The firm's work ranges from art ...
drew up designs for an 11-story annex on 88th Street, behind the existing museum building. The original plan, announced in 1985, would have cantilevered over the existing building. The design was downsized to 10 stories in early 1987 due to opposition from local residents. At the time, the building could only exhibit 150 pieces at once, about three percent of the 5,000 works in the museum's collection. In anticipation of the annex's construction and a wider-ranging renovation of the older building, Gwathmey Siegel also renovated the Thannhauser wing's second floor and the top level of the main gallery's ramp in 1987. The Board of Standards and Appeals approved the 89th Street annex that October, despite continuing opposition. Messer retired the next month, on the 50th anniversary of the collection's founding. The
New York City Board of Estimate The New York City Board of Estimate was a governmental body in New York City responsible for numerous areas of municipal policy and decisions, including the city budget, land-use, contracts, franchises, and water rates. Under the amendments effec ...
approved plans for the Guggenheim's annex in 1988, and the
New York Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the New York State Unified Court System. (Its Appellate Division is also the highest intermediate appellate court.) It is vested with unlimited civ ...
upheld the Board of Estimate's decision.


Krens era

Thomas Krens Thomas Krens (born December 26, 1946) is the former director and Senior Advisor for International Affairs of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York City.''The New York Times'' staff.Guggenheim Foundation staff From the beginning of his ...
, former director of the
Williams College Museum of Art The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is a college-affiliated art museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is located on the campus of Williams College, and is close to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Clark A ...
, took over as the director of both the museum and the foundation in January 1988. Over his nearly two-decade tenure, Krens led a rapid expansion of the museum's collections. Under Krens, the museum mounted some of its most popular exhibitions, including "Africa: The Art of a Continent" in 1996; "China: 5,000 Years" in 1998; "Brazil: Body & Soul" in 2001; and "The Aztec Empire" in 2004. Unusual exhibitions included "
The Art of the Motorcycle The Art of the Motorcycle was an exhibition that presented 114 motorcycles chosen for their historic importance or design excellenceSawetz. "The Art of the Motorcycle is curated by Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, ...
", a
commercial art Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms (magazines, websites, apps, television, etc.) for viewers with the intent of prom ...
installation of motorcycles.


1990s

Shortly after becoming director, Krens decided to spend $24 million on renovating the Guggenheim. Renovation work commenced in late 1989; initially the museum remained open during the project. The museum building would later close for 18 months. The monitor wing was restored, the 88th Street wing was converted from a conservation laboratory to a restaurant, and additional exhibition space was created at the top of the main gallery. The 89th Street annex was built as part of this project, and the basement was extended underneath Fifth Avenue. The windows were replaced, and the clerestory windows along the ramp were unsealed and restored to their original design. The building's exhibition space roughly doubled, allowing the museum to show six percent of the works in its collection. The renovation was completed on June 27, 1992. The museum relocated its offices to the annex, basement, and the new
Guggenheim Museum SoHo The Guggenheim Museum SoHo was a branch of the Guggenheim Museum designed by Arata Isozaki that was located at the corner of Broadway and Prince Street in SoHo, Manhattan SoHo, sometimes written Soho (South of Houston Street), is a neighborhoo ...
, and it moved storage space and
conservation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and manageme ...
activities to other buildings. The completion of the annex allowed the Guggenheim to display more works from its permanent collection, as well as temporary exhibitions. The Guggenheim Foundation acquired 200 photographs from
Robert Mapplethorpe Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...
in 1992 and renamed the annex's fourth-floor gallery after Mapplethorpe in 1993. To finance the renovation and new acquisitions, the foundation sold works by Kandinsky,
Chagall Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...
, and Modigliani, raising $47 million. This move was controversial, drawing considerable criticism for trading masters for "trendy" latecomers. In ''The New York Times'', critic
Michael Kimmelman Michael Kimmelman (born May 8, 1958) is the architecture critic for ''The New York Times'' and has written about public housing, public space, landscape architecture, community development and equity, infrastructure and urban design. He has repor ...
wrote that the sales "stretched the accepted rules of deaccessioning further than many American institutions have been willing to do." Krens defended the action as consistent with the museum's principles by expanding its international collection and building its "postwar collection to the strength of our pre-war holdings", and he noted that museums regularly conduct such sales. He also expanded the foundation's international presence by opening museums abroad. Krens was also criticized for his businesslike style and perceived populism and commercialization. One writer commented, "Krens has been both praised and vilified for turning what was once a small New York institution into a worldwide brand, creating the first truly multinational arts institution. ... Krens transformed the Guggenheim into one of the best-known brand names in the arts." The museum cut back its operating hours in 1994; this resulted in a 25 percent decline in annual attendance, even as the city's other art museums saw increased attendance.
Samuel J. LeFrak Samuel J. LeFrak (February 12, 1918 – April 16, 2003) was an American real estate tycoon. He was a noted landlord who chaired a private building firm, the LeFrak Organization, which was ranked 45th on the ''Forbes'' list of top 500 private compa ...
announced in December 1993 that he would donate $10 million, the largest cash donation in the museum's history, with the Fifth Avenue building to be renamed for him and his wife. The next month, Ronald O. Perelman announced that he would also donate $10 million. The
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...
(LPC), which had designated the building as a landmark, repeatedly refused to allow officials to place a sign with LeFrak's name outside the building. Consequently, LeFrak rescinded $8 million of his donation.
Peter B. Lewis Peter Benjamin Lewis (November 11, 1933 – November 23, 2013) was an American businessman who was the chairman of Progressive Insurance Company. Early life and education Lewis was raised in a Jewish
donated $10 million in 1995 for the restoration of the museum's auditorium, which was renamed the Peter B. Lewis Theater after the project was completed the next year. Lewis donated an additional $50 million in 1998, and several other trustees, including Perelman, increased their donations.


2000s

The museum opened an arts center in the basement in 2001; originally named for the
Sackler family The Sackler family is an American family who founded and owned the pharmaceutical companies Purdue Pharma and Mundipharma. Purdue Pharma, and some members of the family, have faced lawsuits regarding overprescription of addictive pharmaceutical ...
, it was renamed the Gail May Engelberg Center for Arts Education in 2022. Also in 2001, as part of a
Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considere ...
retrospective at the museum, Gehry designed a canopy, which was installed outside the fifth floor. It remained in place for six years after the retrospective ended. By 2004, museum officials were raising $25 million for another restoration of the building and had hired
Swanke Hayden Connell Architects Swanke Hayden Connell Architects was an international architecture, interiors and historic preservation firm with U.S. headquarters in New York City. History The firm was founded in New York in 1906 by Alexander Stewart Walker (1876-1952) and Leo ...
to survey the building. By then, the structure had developed numerous leaks. Officials started renovating the museum in September 2005 to repair cracksPark, Haeyoun
"Face-Lift for an Aging Museum"
''The New York Times'', April 16, 2007
and modernize systems and exterior details, after architects and engineers determined that the building was structurally sound. The restoration mainly consisted of exterior and infrastructure upgrades, preserving as many historical details as possible while allowing museum operations to continue. On September 22, 2008, the Guggenheim celebrated the project's completion with the premiere of artist
Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. The main focus of her work is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, p ...
's tribute ''For the Guggenheim''. The renovation had cost $29 million and was funded by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's board of trustees, the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York state government, and MAPEI Corporation. Meanwhile, during the early 2000s, Krens was involved in a long-running dispute with Lewis, who was also chairman of the foundation's board of directors. When admission declined by 60 percent following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the museum faced budgetary deficits, as one-quarter of its revenue came from ticket sales. Lewis donated $12 million to the museum in 2002 under the condition that Krens tighten the budget. Despite having given $77 million, more than any other donor in the Guggenheim's history, Lewis did not have as much influence over the board's decisions as did top donors at the city's other art museums. Lewis resigned from the board of directors in 2005, expressing opposition to Krens's plans for additional museums around the world. Longtime curator Lisa Dennison was hired as the museum's new director in 2005, working under Krens, who continued to direct the foundation. By 2006, the museum had a $35 million deficit in its operating budget, even as Dennison rejected the idea of funding exhibits through corporate sponsorships. Dennison resigned in July 2007 to work at auction house
Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...
. Tensions between Krens and the board continued, and Krens stepped down as the director of the foundation in February 2008.


Armstrong era

Richard Armstrong, former director of the
Carnegie Museum of Art The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburg ...
, became the director of the museum and the foundation in November 2008. ''The New York Times'' said the Guggenheim Foundation had selected Armstrong because his "calmer, steadier presence" contrasted with the "nearly 20 often tumultuous years of Mr. Krens’s maverick vision". In addition to its permanent collections, which continue to grow, the foundation administers loan exhibitions and co-organizes exhibitions with other museums to foster public outreach.Foundation website's collaborations page
The museum hosted exhibitions such as ''
America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
'' (2016), one of the smallest exhibits ever hosted in the Guggenheim. About 140 maintenance workers and art installers joined a
labor union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (s ...
in 2019, marking the first time that the museum's employees had unionized. The same year, Chaédria LaBouvier became the first black woman curator to create a solo exhibition and first black person to write a text published by the museum. She accused the museum of racism and alleged that, among other things, officials withheld resources and refused to let journalists interview her. Within a month of these criticisms, the museum hired its first full-time black curator, Ashley James. The museum's chief curator and deputy director, Nancy Spector, resigned in 2020, following accusations that Spector had racially discriminated against LaBouvier. The Guggenheim approved a plan for increasing racial diversity in August 2020, and it hired a "chief culture and inclusion officer" in 2021. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guggenheim closed in March 2020. It reopened that October, recording a monthly net loss of $1.4 million while it was closed. The museum fired numerous staff members during the pandemic. Armstrong announced in mid-2022 that he plans to resign in 2023.


Architecture

Wright's design for the Guggenheim Museum incorporated geometric motifs, such as squares, circles, rectangles, triangles and lozenges. The
massing Massing is a term in architecture which refers to the perception of the general shape and form as well as size of a building. Massing in architectural theory Massing refers to the structure in three dimensions (form), not just its outline from ...
contains two spiraling structures, the six-story main gallery to the south and the smaller "monitor" to the north, which are connected by a "bridge" on the second story. The ten-story rectangular annex, to the northeast, appears behind the spiraling structures as viewed from Central Park. The building embodies Wright's attempts "to render the inherent plasticity of organic forms in architecture". Wright's design included details inspired by nature, although it also expresses his take on modernist architecture's rigid geometry. Wright described a symbolic meaning to the building's shapes: " ese geometric forms suggest certain human ideas, moods, sentiments – as for instance: the circle, infinity; the triangle, structural unity; the spiral, organic progress; the square, integrity." Forms echo one another throughout: oval-shaped columns, for example, reiterate the geometry of the fountain. Circularity is the leitmotif, from the main gallery to the inlays in the museum's
terrazzo Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bindi ...
floors.


Exterior

Wright originally wanted to construct a marble facade, but builder George N. Cohen constructed the facade of gunite, a type of sprayed concrete, as a cost-cutting measure. Wright's and Cohen's names appear on a tile placed along the building's exterior; this is likely the only time when Wright and a builder shared credit for a building's construction. Wright had also proposed a red-colored exterior, which was never realized. Instead, the facade was covered in an ivory-colored coating of vinyl plastic, known as a "cocoon". The engineers involved in the original construction thought that the "cocoon" would not crack, so the facade was built without
expansion joint An expansion joint, or movement joint, is an assembly designed to hold parts together while safely absorbing temperature-induced expansion and contraction of building materials, and vibration, or to allow movement due to ground settlement or seis ...
s; they were wrong: the facade cracked in subsequent years. During subsequent renovations, conservators found that the facade was originally painted brownish yellow, which was covered with numerous coats of white or off-white paint over the years. The sidewalk in front of the museum acts as a
forecourt Forecourt may refer to: * a courtyard at the front of a building * in racket sports, the front part of the court * the area in a filling station A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that ...
, with metal circles inset into its surface, similar in design to the floor inside the museum. Next to the sidewalk are curving parapets that surround planting beds, some of which are below ground level. The planting beds originally contained shrubs, sycamore trees, and other vegetation.


Original building

The museum's main entrance is at the center of the Fifth Avenue facade. It consists of an aluminum-framed glass wall with several doors, recessed within a low foyer. A doorway directly in front of the entrance leads to the bookstore, while the museum galleries are accessed by doors to the right. Above the main entrance is a "bridge" connecting the main gallery and monitor building, which is supported by several lozenge-shaped piers. The underside of the bridge contains recessed lighting that illuminates the main entrance. The main entrance was originally the entrance to a driveway that curved toward 89th Street, with separate entrances to the monitor and main gallery. The glass wall was installed after the driveway was closed in the 1970s, and the museum's bookstore was placed directly behind the wall. To the south of the main entrance is a curved wall, which forms the base of the main gallery. There is a ramp adjacent to this wall, which leads to the basement auditorium. At the southeast corner of the museum, on 88th Street, is a rectangular structure, which contains no openings except for five circular portals at ground level. The structure contains the museum's cafe, which was part of Wright's original plans but was not developed until 1992. The second floor of the rectangular structure contains the High Gallery. Immediately to the east, on 88th Street, is an aluminum service gate with circular designs. The bridge, which carries the Guggenheim's second story, projects at the museum's southwest corner. The museum's name stretches along the bottom edge of the bridge's Fifth Avenue facade. The main gallery rises above the southern part of the bridge; it consists of a "bowl"-shaped massing, with several concrete "bands" separated by recessed aluminum skylights. From the street, the building looks like a white ribbon curled into a cylindrical stack, wider at the top than the bottom, displaying nearly all curved surfaces. Its appearance is in sharp contrast to the typically rectangular Manhattan buildings that surround it, a fact relished by Wright, who claimed that his museum would make the nearby
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
"look like a Protestant barn". At the top of the "bowl" is a
parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Wh ...
, which surrounds three smaller skylights, as well as the large twelve-sided dome atop the main gallery. The northern part of the bridge contains a four-story wing, originally known as the monitor. Although the monitor's interior is cylindrical, its exterior contains different materials and shapes on each story. The monitor's first two stories contain a round concrete facade, while the upper two stories are cantilevered outward from the monitor's core. The third story contains rectangular aluminum windows with semicircular panes at their tops. The fourth story contains a square terrace and additional windows. Above the fourth story is a
fascia A fascia (; plural fasciae or fascias; adjective fascial; from Latin: "band") is a band or sheet of connective tissue, primarily collagen, beneath the skin that attaches to, stabilizes, encloses, and separates muscles and other internal organs ...
with lozenge patterns, as well as a hexagonal roof with an aluminum frame. The roof is interrupted by a lozenge-shaped shaft, which contains a stairway.


Annex

A ten-story tower at the museum's northeastern corner, with offices, artist's studios and apartments, included in Wright's 1951 plan for the museum was a rectangular structure, aligned on a north–south axis, and would have contained porches at each story on the northern and southern elevations. Wright's original plan for the tower went unrealized, largely for financial reasons, until the 1990–1992 renovation and expansion.Perez, Adelyn
"AD Classics: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum"
May 18, 2010. Retrieved March 21, 2012.
Instead
William Wesley Peters William Wesley Peters (June 12, 1912 – July 17, 1991) was an American architect and engineer, apprentice to and protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright. Early life Wes, as he was known to friends and associates, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana on Jun ...
designed a shorter wing on the site in 1968, with two double-height floors. This wing was made of concrete, with relief carvings of squares and octagons on its facade, and housed the museum's library, storage space, and the Thannhauser Gallery. Its steel framework could accommodate the weight of six additional stories if it were expanded. Gwathmey Siegel & Associates designed a 10-story annex that was finally built in the renovation. The annex, measuring wide and tall, uses the 1968 wing's steel framework. During the renovation, Gwathmey Siegel removed the 1968 concrete facade and replaced it with a limestone grid. They analyzed Wright's original sketches when they designed the tower.


Interior

The core part of Guggenheim's interior consists of the monitor section to the north, the larger main gallery to the south, and a lecture hall beneath the main gallery. To the east of the main entrance is the bookstore, in the area that was originally part of the museum's driveway. To the south of the main entrance is a small circular vestibule, which contains a floor with metal arcs and a low plaster ceiling with recessed lighting. South of the main rotunda is a cafe, added during the 1990s renovation. The triangular service core, at the northeast corner of the main gallery, contains an elevator and a staircase. The staircase wraps around the elevator, which is housed within a semicircular shaft; the core also contains restrooms and mechanical areas. According to author Robert McCarter, Wright had used "complete geometries" for the stairs and ramps because he wanted visitors to experience the museum on foot. Other rooms, such as the staff kitchen, were designed with curved equipment because of the interior's unusual design. The museum's interior is generally painted white, and parts of the interior are repainted nearly every day.


Main gallery

Wright designed the main gallery (also described as a rotunda) as an open-air atrium, surrounded by a helical ramp. Wright's design differed from the conventional approach to museum layout, in which visitors pass through a series of interconnected rooms and retrace their steps when exiting. Under Wright's plan, guests rode an elevator to the top of the building and descended the ramp, viewing the main gallery itself as a work of art. The ramp's design recalled a
nautilus The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina. It comprises six living species in ...
shell, with continuous spaces flowing one into another. The open rotunda allows guests to observe works on different levels simultaneously and interact with guests on other levels. Structurally, the ramp acts like an enormous arch, preventing the columns in the main gallery from collapsing inward. The main gallery has a beige terrazzo floor with inlaid metal circles. At ground level are information and admissions desks made of wood, and windows facing southeast toward Fifth Avenue and 88th Street. The ramp, made of
reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...
, ascends at a 5 percent slope from ground level and rises one story, where it wraps around a planter and passes through a double-height archway. It rises five additional stories before ending at the sixth floor, with a total length of . Its width increases as it ascends, from on the lowest level to at the top. The ramp protrudes into the northeastern corner of the atrium at each story, forming a rounded balcony. There are connections to other galleries at the second and fourth stories, and to a triangular gallery at the sixth story. The ramp has a low parapet along the atrium side, measuring high. The walls and ceilings are made of plaster. To create the concrete walls, workers sprayed several layers of concrete onto plywood moldings, each layer being reinforced with steel. Wright intended the low ceilings and slanted walls to provide a "more intimate environment" to display the artwork. The walls are tilted at a 97-degree angle, and the ceilings measure tall. Jaroslav Josef Polívka assisted Wright with the structural design, and he initially designed the gallery ramp without perimeter columns. Later in the design, Wright added a dozen concrete ribs along the walls of the main gallery, which both provide structural reinforcement and divide the ramp into sections. The ramp passes through 70 sections in total. Alhough Wright wanted the paintings displayed as if they were on an easel, paintings are mounted onto horizontal bars that protrude from the sloped wall. There is limited space for sculptures within each bay, and wider paintings frequently span the center of the curved wall. The ramp was originally illuminated by
clerestory In architecture, a clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey) is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both. Historically, ''clerestory'' denoted an upper l ...
windows along the perimeter of each level, which were sealed when the building was completed. Each level of the ramp also contains recessed lighting on its ceiling. The domed skylight is around high and is the same width as the atrium. Metal bars divide the skylight into numerous panes. Along the dome are six hairpin-shaped "spokes", which surround a circular glass panel and connect with the "ribs" along the gallery's perimeter. These spokes divide the skylight into twelve sections. The original plans called for the dome to be illuminated by 24 floodlights. The clerestory windows and skylight were restored in 1992.


Monitor section

The museum's "monitor" houses the Thannhauser Collection. Its galleries surround an atrium that is circular except for a stair hall at one end of the space. The floors are supported by columns with lozenge-shaped cross-sections. Like the main gallery, the monitor contains a triangular service core, although its core is placed at the center of the structure. The monitor was originally supposed to include apartments for Rebay and Guggenheim, but this area became offices and storage space. In 1965, the second floor of the monitor was renovated to display some of the museum's growing permanent collection. Part of the fourth floor was similarly converted in 1980. With the restoration of the museum in the early 1990s, the second through fourth floors were converted entirely to exhibition space and renamed the Thannhauser Building.


Gail May Engelberg Center for Arts Education

The Gail May Engelberg Center for Arts Education, completed in 2001, covers on the lower level of the museum, below the main gallery. It was a gift of the Mortimer D. Sackler family and was originally named for them. The facility provides classes and lectures about the visual and performing arts and opportunities to interact with the museum's collections and special exhibitions through its labs, exhibition spaces, conference rooms and 266-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater."Sackler Center for Arts Education"
, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved March 21, 2012.
Following criticism over the Sackler family's involvement in the
opioid epidemic in the United States In the United States, the opioid epidemic (also known as the opioid crisis) is an extensive ongoing overuse of opioid medications, both from medical prescriptions and from illegal sources. The epidemic began in the United States in the late ...
, the center was renamed in 2022 for museum trustee Gail May Engelberg, who along with her husband Alfred Engelberg had donated $15 million to the museum. The basement space looks out onto a sloped driveway outside the southwest corner of the museum. The Peter B. Lewis Theater is directly beneath the main gallery and contains two levels of seating: an orchestra level and a balcony. There is a coatroom at the balcony level, separated from the balcony seats by a metal partition. The southeast corner of the orchestra level contains a raised wooden stage. The theater's walls contain embedded piers, as well as semicircular window openings. The plaster ceiling contains recessed cove lighting. When the theater was built, it could be accessed directly from the triangular service core, as well as via the driveway outside the museum.


Annex galleries

The 89th Street annex contains of additional exhibition space. There are four exhibition galleries with flat walls that are "more appropriate for the display of art". Each of the gallery levels, are double-height spaces. A loading dock is below the galleries, while two office stories and a mechanical floor are above. A steel-and-glass lobby connects the annex to the monitor's ground level, and ramps and passageways connect with the monitor's three upper stories. The annex is linked to the main gallery's stair tower at the fourth, fifth, and seventh stories. It also connects to rooftop terraces above the monitor and main gallery.


Landmark designations

The
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The LPC is responsible for protecting New York City's architecturally, historically, and cu ...
designated the museum building and its interior as New York City landmarks on August 14, 1990, two years after the annex's opponents had asked the commission to consider such a designation. At the time, the Guggenheim was one of the youngest buildings to have city landmark status, having been completed 31 years earlier. The museum was added to the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
(NRHP) on May 19, 2005, and was re-added to the NRHP as a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
on October 6, 2008."National Register of Historic Places; New Listings October 6 – October 10, 2008"
NPS.gov, October 17, 2008. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
In July 2019, the Guggenheim was among eight properties by Wright placed on the
World Heritage List A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
under the title " The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright".


Collection

The Guggenheim has about 8,000 works in its collection . About 1,700 of these works are part of the Guggenheim's online collection. The museum building has a relatively small capacity; according to ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', following the 1992 renovation, the Guggenheim could show "upward of 6%" of its 5,000-piece collection. In contrast to other visual-art museums, the Guggenheim does not divide its collection into departments. The museum shares its collection with the
Peggy Guggenheim Collection The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is an art museum on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro ''sestiere'' of Venice, Italy. It is one of the most visited attractions in Venice. The collection is housed in the , an 18th-century palace, which was the home ...
in Venice and
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. The museum was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Spa ...
.


Personal collections

The Guggenheim Museum has acquired private collections throughout its history, including those of Guggenheim, Karl Nierendorf, Katherine Sophie Dreier, Thannhauser, Rebay, Giuseppe Panza, Mapplethorpe, and the Bohen Foundation. The earliest works in the museum's collection include those by modernists such as Rudolf Bauer, Rebay, Kandinsky,
Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...
,
Marc Chagall Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...
,
Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...
,
Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...
,
Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (, ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, an ...
and
Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is ...
. Parts of the original collection have been sold over the years; 620 of the original works were designated as part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection in 2007. The Founding Collection contains artwork from over 60 artists, including more than 150 works by Kandinsky. In 1948, the Museum of Non-Objective Art acquired Nierendorf's 730 objects, notably
German expressionist German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...
paintings. The Guggenheim still had 121 works from the Nierendorf collection in the 1990s; these comprise a broad spectrum of
expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it r ...
and
surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
works, including paintings by
Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...
,
Oskar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense Expressionism, expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the ...
, and
Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...
. In 1953, the Guggenheim acquired 28 pieces from Dreier's collection, which included works by
Alexander Archipenko Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (also referred to as Olexandr, Oleksandr, or Aleksandr; uk, Олександр Порфирович Архипенко, Romanized: Olexandr Porfyrovych Arkhypenko; February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian and American ...
,
Constantin Brâncuși Constantin Brâncuși (; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century and a pioneer of modernism, ...
,
Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his ...
,
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
,
Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...
,
El Lissitzky Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, ; – 30 December 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Эль Лиси́цкий; yi, על ליסיצקי), was a Russian artist ...
, Mondrian, and
Kurt Schwitters Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including dadaism, constructivism, surrealism, poetry, sound, pain ...
. The Thannhauser Collection, acquired in 1963, consists of 73 works, largely in the
Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
,
Post-Impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction aga ...
and French modern styles. Thannhauser's collection includes pieces by
Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fro ...
,
Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Bor ...
,
Camille Pissarro Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). Hi ...
,
Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inclu ...
, and 32 works by Picasso. Rebay also left a portion of her personal collection to the foundation in her will, including works by Kandinsky, Klee, Calder,
Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...
, Mondrian, and Schwitters. The Guggenheim received Rebay's collection in 1971, four years after her death, because of a prolonged lawsuit over the collection. In 1990 the museum acquired the Panza Collection from Giovanna and Giuseppe Panza in 1990 It includes examples of
minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...
sculptures by
Carl Andre Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear and grid format sculptures and for the suspected murder of contemporary and wife, Ana Mendieta. His sculptures range from large public artw ...
,
Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures. Early life and career Daniel Nicholas Flavin ...
and
Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...
, and minimalist paintings by
Robert Mangold Robert Mangold (born October 12, 1937) is an American minimalist artist. He is also father of film director and screenwriter James Mangold. Early life and education Mangold was born in North Tonawanda, New York. His mother, Blanche, was a ...
, Brice Marden and
Robert Ryman Robert Ryman (May 30, 1930February 8, 2019) was an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He was best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lived and worked in New York C ...
, as well as an array of
postminimal Postminimalism is an art term coined (as post-minimalism) by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p ...
,
conceptual Conceptual may refer to: Philosophy and Humanities *Concept *Conceptualism *Philosophical analysis (Conceptual analysis) *Theoretical definition (Conceptual definition) * Thinking about Consciousness (Conceptual dualism) *Pragmatism (Conceptual p ...
, and perceptual art by Robert Morris,
Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, urban, and architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material quality and exploration of ...
,
James Turrell James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. Much of Turrell's career has been devoted to a still-unfinished work, ''Roden Crater'', a natural cinder cone crater located outside ...
,
Lawrence Weiner Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942December 2, 2021) was an American conceptual artist. He was one of the central figures in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s. His work often took the form of typographic texts, a form of word ...
and others, notably American examples of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1992, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation gifted 200 of Mapplethorpe's best photographs to the foundation. The works spanned his entire output, from his early collages, Polaroids, portraits of celebrities, self-portraits, male and female nudes, flowers, and statues; it also featured mixed-media constructions and included his well-known 1998 ''Self-Portrait''. The acquisition initiated the foundation's photography exhibition program. In 2001, the foundation received a gift of the collection of the Bohen Foundation, which, for two decades, commissioned new works of art with an emphasis on film, video, photography and new media. The Bohen collection comprises around 275 works by 45 artists, including Pierre Huyghe and Sophie Calle. In 2022, the Guggenheim and the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporar ...
, jointly received 100 works gifted by the D. Daskalopoulos Collection.


Other notable works

Under Sweeney's tenure, in the 1950s, the Guggenheim acquired
Constantin Brâncuși Constantin Brâncuși (; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century and a pioneer of modernism, ...
's ''Adam and Eve'' (1921) and works by other modernist sculptors such as
Joseph Csaky Joseph Csaky (also written Josef Csàky, Csáky József, József Csáky and Joseph Alexandre Czaky) (18 March 1888 – 1 May 1971) was a Hungarian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic arts, graphic artist, best known for his early partici ...
,
Jean Arp Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist. Early life Arp was born in Straßburg (now Stras ...
, Calder,
Alberto Giacometti Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, Drafter, draftsman and Printmaking, printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo, ...
and David Smith. Sweeney reached beyond the 20th century to acquire
Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically di ...
's ''Man with Crossed Arms'' (c. 1899) and works by David Hayes,
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter E ...
and
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
.


Selected works in the collection

File:Paul Cézanne, c.1899, Homme aux bras croisés (Man With Crossed Arms), oil on canvas, 92 x 72.7 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.jpg,
Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically di ...
, c.1899, ''Homme aux bras croisés'' (''Man With Crossed Arms''), oil on canvas, 92 x 72.7 cm File:Georges Braque, 1909 (September), Violin and Palette (Violon et palette, Dans l'atelier), oil on canvas, 91.7 x 42.8 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.jpg,
Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...
, 1909, ''Violin and Palette'' (''Violon et palette, Dans l'atelier''), oil on canvas, 91.7 x 42.8 cm File:Wassily Kandinsky, 1910, Landscape with Factory Chimney, oil on canvas, 66.2 x 82 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.jpg,
Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj;  – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
, 1910, ''Landscape with Factory Chimney'', oil on canvas, 66.2 x 82 cm File:Franz Marc-The Yellow Cow-1911.jpg,
Franz Marc Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc (8 February 1880 – 4 March 1916) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of '' Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later b ...
, 1911, ''The Yellow Cow'', oil on canvas, 140.5 x 189.2 cm File:Juan Gris, 1911, Maisons à Paris (Houses in Paris), oil on canvas, 52.4 x 34.2 cm, Guggenheim Museum.jpg, Juan Gris, 1911, ''Maisons à Paris'' (''Houses in Paris''), 1911, oil on canvas, 52.4 x 34.2 cm File:Fernand Léger, 1911-1912, Les Fumeurs (The Smokers), oil on canvas, 129.2 x 96.5 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York..jpg,
Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...
, 1911–12, ''Les Fumeurs (The Smokers)'', oil on canvas, 129.2 x 96.5 cm File:Jean Metzinger, 1912, Femme à l'Éventail (Woman with a Fan), oil on canvas, 90.7 x 64.2 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.jpg,
Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...
, 1912, '' Femme à l'Éventail (Woman with a Fan)'', oil on canvas, 90.7 x 64.2 cm File:Fernand Léger, 1912-13, Nude Model in the Studio (Le modèle nu dans l'atelier), oil on burlap, 128.6 x 95.9 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim.jpg,
Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...
, 1912–13, ''Nude Model in the Studio (Le modèle nu dans l'atelier)'', oil on burlap, 128.6 x 95.9 cm File:Alexander Archipenko, 1913, Pierrot-carrousel, painted plaster, 61 × 48.6 × 34 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Reproduced in Archipenko-Album, 1921.jpg,
Alexander Archipenko Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (also referred to as Olexandr, Oleksandr, or Aleksandr; uk, Олександр Порфирович Архипенко, Romanized: Olexandr Porfyrovych Arkhypenko; February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian and American ...
, 1913, ''Pierrot-carrousel'', painted plaster, 61 × 48.6 × 34 cm File:Marc Chagall, 1913, Paris par la fenêtre (Paris Through the Window), oil on canvas, 136 x 141.9 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.jpg, Marc Chagall, 1913, ''Paris par la fenêtre'' (''Paris Through the Window''), oil on canvas, 136 x 141.9 cm File:GUGG The Horse.jpg,
Raymond Duchamp-Villon Raymond Duchamp-Villon (5 November 1876 – 9 October 1918) was a French sculptor. Life and art Duchamp-Villon was born Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Normandy region of France, the second son of Eugène and Lucie Duc ...
, 1914 (cast c.1930), ''Le cheval'' (''The Horse''), bronze, 43.6 × 41 cm File:Albert Gleizes, 1914-15, Portrait of an Army Doctor (Portrait d'un médecin militaire), oil on canvas, 119.8 x 95.1 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.jpg,
Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...
, 1914–15, '' Portrait of an Army Doctor (Portrait d'un médecin militaire)'', oil on canvas, 119.8 x 95.1 cm File:Albert Gleizes, 1915, Brooklyn Bridge, oil and gouache on canvas, 102 x 102 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.jpg, Albert Gleizes, 1915, '' Brooklyn Bridge (Pont de Brooklyn)'', oil and gouache on canvas, 102 x 102 cm cm File:Juan Gris, 1917, Compotier et nappe à carreaux, oil on wood panel, 80.6 x 53.9 cm, Guggenheim Museum.jpg, Juan Gris, 1917, ''Compotier et nappe à carreaux'' (''Fruit Dish on a Checkered Tablecloth''), oil on wood panel, 80.6 x 53.9 cm File:Modigliani nude sdraiato.jpg,
Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (, ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, an ...
, 1917, ''Nude (Nu)'', oil on canvas, 73 × 116.7 cm File:Doesburg.jpg,
Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (, 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch artist, who practiced painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He was married to artist, pianist and choreographer Nell ...
, 1918, ''Composition XI'', oil on canvas, 57 x 101 cm File:Paul Klee, 1922, Red Balloon, oil on chalk-primed gauze, mounted on board, 31.7 x 31.1 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.jpg,
Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...
, 1922, ''Red Balloon (Roter Ballon)'' oil on chalk-primed gauze, mounted on board, 31.7 × 31.1 cm


Governance and staff

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation operates and owns the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The foundation's art and museum committee is responsible for proposing acquisitions and deaccessions from the foundation's collection, while the foundation's board of trustees determines whether to enact the art and museum committee's proposals. J. Tomilson Hill has served as the board's chair since 2021, while Marcy Withington has been the foundation's chief financial officer since 2018. , Richard Armstrong is the director of both the Guggenheim Foundation and the museum. The museum employed 315 full-time and part-time staff members .


Reception and commentary


Contemporary views

Even before the building opened, the design polarized architecture critics and was controversial among the public. Some critics believed the building would overshadow the museum's artworks.
Emily Genauer Emily Genauer (July 19, 1911 – August 23, 2002) was an American art critic for the ''New York World'', the ''New York Herald Tribune'', and ''Newsday''. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1974. Biography She was born on Staten Island in ...
of the ''
New York Herald Tribune The ''New York Herald Tribune'' was a newspaper published between 1924 and 1966. It was created in 1924 when Ogden Mills Reid of the ''New-York Tribune'' acquired the ''New York Herald''. It was regarded as a "writer's newspaper" and competed ...
'' said the building had been likened to "a giant corkscrew, a washing machine and a marshmallow", while Solomon's niece
Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down wit ...
believed it resembled "a huge garage". Members of the public felt that the building contrasted with the character of Fifth Avenue. Other critics, and many artists, worried that it would be difficult to properly hang paintings in the shallow, windowless, concave exhibition niches around the main gallery. Prior to the opening of the museum, 21 artists signed a letter protesting the display of their work in such a space. Phyllis Mark of the ''New Leader'' commented that the walls and ceilings would "disorient the viewer" and noted that the museum could only display five percent of its collection in the new building. Art critics reviewed the structure especially harshly. John Canaday of ''The New York Times'' wrote that the design would be worthy of merit if it were "stripped of its pictures", while
Hilton Kramer Hilton Kramer (March 25, 1928 – March 27, 2012) was an American art critic and essayist. Biography Early life Kramer was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was educated at Syracuse University, receiving a bachelor's degree in English; Col ...
of ''
Arts Magazine ''Arts Magazine'' was a prominent monthly magazine devoted to fine art. It was established in 1926 and last published in 1992. History Early years Launched in 1926 and originally titled ''The Art Digest,'' it was printed semi-monthly from Octobe ...
'' opined that the structure was "what is probably right'smost useless edifice". Architectural critic
Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a w ...
summed up the opprobrium:
Wright has allotted the paintings and sculptures on view only as much space as would not infringe upon his abstract composition. ... ecreated a shell whose form has no relation to its function and offered no possibility of future departure from his rigid preconceptions. he ramphas, for a museum, a low ceiling – nine feet eight inches 95 cmso only a picture well within the vertical boundaries thus created can be shown. The wall ... slanted outward, following the outward slant of the exterior wall, and paintings were not supposed to be hung vertically or shown in their true plane but were to be tilted back against it. ... Nor an a visitorescape the light shining in his eyes from the narrow slots in the wall.
During his lifetime, Wright dismissed criticism of the structure, saying: "For the first time, art will be seen through an open window and, of all places, in New York". He also felt that his design complemented Central Park, particularly with the shrubbery around the new building, which formed "a little park with a building in it". Wright believed that the building would be well suited to
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical D ...
art, "which purported to represent space and form in a new, fully integrated manner". The building also received critical acclaim. In a 1958 survey of the "Seven Wonders of American Architecture", five hundred architects ranked the Guggenheim as the 18th-best structure of more than 100 selected buildings. When the building opened, modernist architects such as
Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...
and
Edward Durell Stone Edward Durell Stone (March 9, 1902 – August 6, 1978) was an American architect known for the formal, highly decorative buildings he designed in the 1950s and 1960s. His works include the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City, the Museo de ...
praised Wright's design, and Genauer regarded it as "the most beautiful building in America". This sentiment was shared even by commentators who questioned the building's functionality, including Robert M. Coates of ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', who wrote: "My question is not 'Is it art?' (I believe it is) but 'How well will it house art?'". A writer for the ''New York Daily Mirror'' said the Guggenheim "should be put in a museum to show how mad the twentieth century is." Directors of other major New York City museums also praised the building, though some of them were skeptical of whether the structure could function well as a museum.


Impact and retrospective commentary

In later years, the building became widely praised. Marcus Whiffen and Frederick Koeper wrote: "The dynamic interior of the Guggenheim is, for some, too competitive for the display of art, but no one disputes that it is one of the memorable spaces in all of architecture." Paul Goldberger said in 2009: "I think the legacy of this building is in the message that architecture does not have to lie down and play dead in front of art." According to
Herbert Muschamp Herbert Mitchell Muschamp (November 28, 1947 – October 2, 2007) was an American architecture critic. Early years Born in Philadelphia, Muschamp described his childhood home life as follows: "The living room was a secret. A forbidden zone. ...
, the Guggenheim was "one of New York's most distinguished landmarks", as well as Wright's best-known design. The American Institute of Architects gave a Twenty-five Year Award to the Guggenheim in 1986, describing the museum's building as "an architectural landmark and a monument to Wright's unique vision". Several writers described the Guggenheim as representing Wright's tendency toward organic architecture. According to William J. R. Curtis, the building was "the apotheosis of Wright's organic philosophy". Peter Blake commented that the Guggenheim was Wright's "only completed work of uncompromising plasticity and continuity", a claim with which Wright's biographer Robert C. Twombly agreed. Critics came to regard the Guggenheim as the best work of Wright's later career, as well as a culmination of the helical shapes that Wright had used in his designs since 1925.
Spiro Kostof Spiro Konstantine Kostof (7 May 1936, Istanbul – 7 December 1991, Berkeley) was a Turkish-born American leading architectural historian, and educator. He was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His books continue to be widely ...
called the museum "a gift of pure architecture", and Edgar Kaufmann Jr. said the building was "one of the irrefutably grand achievements of modern architecture". The museum building inspired other architects' designs. Several similar buildings were developed in the 1960s, although they generally used less concrete than the Guggenheim did. Deborah Solomon of ''
The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...
'' wrote in 2002 that the Guggenheim inspired the phenomenon of "the museum that is just walls", wherein museums competed for the best-designed buildings. The building was also depicted in a two-cent postage stamp issued in Wright's honor in 1966.


Attendance

When the building opened, it was popular with the general public. A 1960
Gallup poll Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide. Starting in the 1980s, Gallup transitioned its bu ...
found that 38 percent of visitors came for the building itself, while an additional 43 percent wanted to see both the building and the art. The Guggenheim did not keep precise attendance records until 1992. Before its 1990s renovation, the museum had an estimated 600,000 annual visitors. This increased to between 900,000 and 1 million annual visitors by the early 2000s. The museum had 960,000 annual visitors before the September 11 attacks, but attendance decreased below that level for several years after the attacks. In 2013, nearly 1.2 million people visited the museum, and its James Turrell exhibition was the most popular in New York City in terms of daily attendance. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guggenheim had 154,000 visitors in 2020, an 88 percent decrease from the preceding year. According to museum officials, various surveys over the years indicated that the majority of guests came because of the building's architecture, rather than for its artwork. ''The New York Times'' reported in 2001 that nearly 70 percent of visitors were tourists and that half of all guests were foreigners. By contrast, the ''Times'' reported in 2010 that between 55 and 65 percent of visitors were from the
New York metropolitan area The New York metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the Tri-State area, is the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass, at , and one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. The vast metropolitan area ...
. According to a 2018 study, 73 percent of the museum's visitors were white, while 8 percent were black. In 2009, a retrospective of Frank Lloyd Wright attracted 372,000 visitors in three months, becoming the museum's single most popular exhibit. This record was broken the next year by a Kandinsky exhibit. , the most popular exhibition in the museum's history was a 2019 exhibition of
Hilma af Klint Hilma af Klint (; 26 October 1862 – 21 October 1944) was a Swedish artist and mystic whose paintings are considered among the first abstract works known in Western art history. A considerable body of her work predates the first purely abstra ...
paintings, which attracted over 600,000 visitors in six months.


See also

* List of Frank Lloyd Wright works * List of Guggenheim Museums *
List of National Historic Landmarks in New York City This article lists National Historic Landmarks in New York City, of which there are 116. One of the New York City sites is also a national monument, and there are two more national monuments in NYC as well. These are listed further below. It al ...
*
List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 59th to 110th Streets The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), formed in 1965, is the New York City governmental commission that administers the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. Since its founding, it has designated over a thousand landmarks, class ...
*
List of World Heritage Sites in the United States The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites are places of importance to cultural or natural heritage as described in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972. Cultural h ...
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Manhattan from 59th to 110th Streets This is intended to be a complete list of properties and districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places between 59th and 110th Streets in Manhattan. For properties and districts in other parts of Manhattan and the other islands of N ...


References


Notes


Citations


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * , S.400 *


External links

*
Google Cultural Institute
page {{DEFAULTSORT:Guggenheim Museum, Solomon R. Art museums and galleries in New York City Buildings and structures completed in 1959 Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan Fifth Avenue Frank Lloyd Wright buildings
Museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
Modern art museums in the United States Modernist architecture in New York City Museums established in 1937 Museums in Manhattan Museums of American art National Historic Landmarks in Manhattan New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan New York City interior landmarks Rotundas in the United States
Museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
Upper East Side