March 07, 2006
Metropolitan Museum of Art unveils cleaned facade
 Recently hidden behind scaffolding, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's century-old Fifth Avenue facade yesterday made a grand reappearance after its first cleaning in the museum's history.
In a four-year, $12.2 million process, the facade's Indiana limestone was washed, structural elements were stabilized and its sculptural elements restored as near as possible to their original 1902 grace. The museum's main and side facades were designed by Richard Morris Hunt and Charles Follen McKim.
Philippe de Montebello, the museum's director, described the facade during the unveiling ceremony Monday:
It’s got six medallion portraits of the greatest artists in history, not any of which was even contemplated ever to be represented here. The names were Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, Durer, Rembrandt and Velásquez. And I’m pleased to tell you that all but one of these artists is now well represented in our collections. The only one who is not is Bramante, but then there's a pretty good excuse: he’s an architect.
And with its caryatids also on the façade represented the four arts: painting, sculpture, architecture and music. Those are by the American sculptor Karl Bitter. And then the façade is further enlivened by its Minerva heads, its lion gargoyles and a number of other elements that are inspired by classical models. All of these elements, obscured for so many years, close to a century, by dust and dirt, are now gleaming again and really give life, texture to the façade, especially when the sun hits it at just the right moment. Founded in 1870, the Met Museum was visted by 4.5 million people last year, according to numbers released by the Met.
Earlier: A play of light, and history, on Met's architecture
March 7, 2006 08:06 AM in Architecture, Museums, Upper East Side
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