BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | First Lady Michelle Obama, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Whitney scion Flora Miller Biddle were among the speakers at the dedication of the new Whitney Museum of American Art on Thursday.
The ceremony was held on Gansevoort St., the $442 million museum’s new home in the heart of the Meatpacking District.
“I took a brief tour and I fell in love with the building,” Obama said. “Just about every space in this building is magnificent.”
Robert Hurst, the museum’s co-chairperson, noted, “Rarely does one have the opportunity to build a museum from the ground up in New York. … This defining location places the Whitney among the city’s cultural icons.”
Renzo Piano, the architect who created the massive “floating ship” of a museum, spoke over the occasional din of traffic from the nearby West Side Highway.
“Mama mia!… What a joy. Welcome to the brand-new piazza,” he said. “Some like to call it the lobby. I’m Italian, I call it the piazza. It’s a place of meeting — it’s a place of city life. …
“I wanted to make it fly,” he said of the design of the building, which sits on enormous support poles, suspended over the first floor, as if on air. However, Piano quipped, “It’s 28,000 tons — so it doesn’t fly.
“Art is freedom,” he said. “Especially American art — a bit wild.”
As a result, the building must mirror that feeling, he said: “It’s got to be brave, flying, a bit unpolite.”
“I love making buildings, but I especially like making buildings for public use,” he said. “Art and beauty make us better people. Beauty builds curiosity and desire. … I’m pretty sure that beauty will save the world.”
Adam Weinberg, the Whitney’s director, said, “People are calling the building ‘generous’ — airy, open, light, but comfortable and warm.”
Mayor de Blasio dubbed the dedication “a signal moment.”
“This is an extraordinary day for New York City, for this nation, for art,” he said.
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney started the museum back during the Great Depression as a salon in her apartment on MacDougal Alley.
Biddle, her granddaughter, said, “The need for art has never been greater — for art can lift us and tell us who we are and who we need to be.”
Both Obama and de Blasio emphasized that art and culture — and the museum — are for everyone, and for all the city’s children and students. Even a little exposure can go a long way, they said.
“One visit, one performance, one touch — and who knows? — you can change a life,” Obama said. “You can find the next Edward Hopper — or who knows? — the next Barack Obama.”
The museum officially opens Fri., May 1. Admission is $22. (Seniors/students, $18. Under age 18 and members, free). Annual membership is about $80.
The museum and Macy’s will throw a free block party for the community on Gansevoort St. on Sat., May 2.
