Frank Gehry's makeover of Philadelphia Museum of Art
Enlisting the creativity of Frank Gehry, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has completed a $233m renovation and reorganisation of the lower interior spaces at the heart of its landmarked 1928 Beaux-Arts building. The latest phase of a master plan for improvements that was approved by the museum’s board in 2004 and involved four years of construction, the so-called Core Project yields nearly 90,000 sq. ft of reimagined public spaces and new galleries.
Perhaps unusually for the architect, who is known for testing boundaries, Gehry took a deferential posture to the almost century-old building. Designed by Horace Trumbauer and Julian Abele as a temple atop a hill, it was badly in need of systems upgrading—electrical, heating, water, air handling and networking...
