Andy Warhol Museum Coming to the Controversial Essex Crossing Development on the Bowery
Since 1994, the 88,000-square-foot Andy Warhol Museum has been one of Pittsburgh’s main attractions, the largest museum in the country dedicated to a single artist. And though Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, he spent most of his formative years in New York City, a fact that has sparked plans for a satellite museum on the Bowery.
In Miami for Art Basel, museum director Eric Shiner told The Observer last night that the Lower East Side museum would be 10,000 square feet and part of the controversial Essex Crossing development. Its anticipated opening is 2017.
Essex Crossing rendering via SHoP Architects.
Essex Crossing is a combination residential-commercial-retail-cultural mega complex that will run along Broome Street between Clinton and Suffolk Streets. Several high-profile architects–including SHoP, Beyer Blinder Belle, and Handel Architects–have already released renderings of their respective projects for the site, so we wonder if the Andy Warhol folks have also been in touch with one or more of the firms.
Shiner did reveal that he hopes to collaborate with nearby institutions like the Tenement Museum (he suggests a Hungarian Warhol family immigrant experience) and the New Museum. He told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the satellite museum is “a chance to exhibit more of the collection to a wider, more international audience and to encourage more people to come to Pittsburgh to see everything we have as well. New York is the amuse-bouche and Pittsburgh is the main course.”
Negotiations and planning for the museum began in 2012. The Essex Crossing developer, Delancey Street Associates, will pay for construction costs and operating deficits during its first five years.
[Via NY Observer and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
