Whitney Museum releases plans for second building.

The Whitney Museum of American Art has released detailed plans to add a second Whitney Museum site to the cultural and civic landscape of New York City with the construction of a new, six-floor. 185,000 s/f building in downtown Manhattan. Located in the Meatpacking District on Gansevoort Street, between West Street and the redeveloped High Line park, the new building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano, will place the Whitney in the heart of New York's most active neighborhood for the visual arts and education.

The downtown Whitney will include approximately 50,000 s/f of galleries, providing long-awaited opportunities to show more of its collection of 20th and 21st century American art in tandem with temporary exhibitions. (The galleries in the Whitney's 1966 Madison Avenue building by Marcel Breuer total 32,000 s/f.) Approximately 15,000 s/f of rooftop galleries will be situated on various levels of the building, allowing for dynamic outdoor exhibitions. A dramatically cantilevered entrance along Gansevoort Street will shelter a public plaza that is destined to become a popular outdoor gathering space, created only steps away from the southern entrance to the High Line.

The new building will engage the Whitney directly with the bustling community of artists, gallerists, students, educators, entrepreneurs, and residents in Chelsea and Greenwich Village, where the Museum was founded by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1930.

The centerpiece of the design is its indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces. The expansive third-floor special exhibition gallery will be approximately 17,500 s/f, one of the largest free-span exhibition spaces in New York. Galleries for the permanent collection on the fourth and fifth floors, and for long-term projects on the top floor, will total approximately 30,000 s/f.

The building also will offer dedicated space for a state-of-the-art education facility; a research library; a conservation area; a multi-use space for film, video and the performing arts; a 175-seat theater; and a study center (the theater and study center both being firsts for the Whitney).

Other amenities include a restaurant; a cafe; a bookstore; a lobby; and a ground-floor exhibition gallery, accessible to the public free of charge, that will contribute to the vibrant street life of the area.

The Whitney has announced a fundraising campaign of $680 million to cover the construction of the new downtown building. Construction is projected to begin in Spring 2009 with an anticipated opening in late 2012.

Renzo Piano Building Workshop is collaborating on the project with Cooper, Robertson & Partners.