Go inside the new Whitney Museum

The Renzo Piano- designed new home of the Whitney Museum is a museum for the New York City of today.

The 50,000-square foot behemoth is not just for the art lover, but for the New Yorker looking for a multi-sensory experience. Today’s city folk and visitors want to see great works and boundary-pushing pieces of artistic expression, but we also want to eat, to drink and to loll about on patios and decks with city views.

The new Whitney gives us those things. There are three outdoor galleries, with outdoor staircases connecting most of them. There is also an outdoor cafe terrace. All look out across the vast expanse of Manhattan — a work of art in itself?

Of course, there is American art spanning the past century, too. Displayed in sweeping, open galleries in rooms lit by both natural and artificial light, the viewing experience is elevated by a feeling of openness. Giant, entire-wall encompassing windows are to thank.

Take a look inside before the museum (and Danny Meyer’s restaurant Untitled) opens on May 1. 99 Gansevoort St., whitney.org