February 13, 2005

A play of light, and history, on Met's architecture

With The Metropolitan Museum of Art's facade now obscured by scaffolding, Christopher Gray uses his Sunday New York Times real estate column to inform us not only what's under there, but how it came to be. Even before the Fifth Avenue entrance was complete in 1902, architects were busy revising, and re-scaling the plans, - a process oft repeated at the Met - and not all updates met with success. He concludes:

Still, a wanderer in the art gallery that is the city's streets cannot be too picky, and the Fifth Avenue front does reward the art lover willing to pause before entering. There is the sweep of classical-style detailing, almost as long as the World Trade Center was tall. Then there is the interplay between the museum's facade and the surviving mansions, especially those of the Marymount School at 84th Street.

Finally, there is the stone itself, especially on the northernmost wing. Since its cleaning late last year, it has seemed like several different materials: sometimes like ice cream, under the nighttime illumination; sometimes translucent yellowy-pink, in raking light; sometimes sparkling in the low winter sun, like a back-country field of fresh-fallen snow.

February 13, 2005 11:15 AM in Architecture, Museums, Sightsology

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