Exterior as Gallery

When designing a contemporary museum building, the exterior can afford opportunities to display art that can become as important as its exhibits inside for attracting new audiences.

The new Whitney Museum of American Art, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop in collaboration with Cooper Robertson and built adjacent to the High Line in downtown Manhattan, uses its façade and exterior terraces to present art to the audience outside its walls. The building engages the elevated linear park’s year-round crowds with super-scale works of art mounted on its exterior planes and visible from a variety of vantage points along the park.