Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. It was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, Hilla von Rebay. The museum adopted its current name in 1952, three years after the death of its founder Solomon R. Guggenheim. It continues to be operated and owned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

The museum's building, a landmark work of 20th-century architecture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, drew controversy for the unusual shape of its display spaces and took 15 years to design and build; it was completed in 1959. It consists of a six-story, bowl-shaped main gallery to the south, a four-story "monitor" to the north, and a ten-story annex to the northeast. A six-story helical ramp extends along the main gallery's perimeter, under a central ceiling skylight. The Thannhauser Collection is housed within the top three stories of the monitor, and there are additional galleries in the annex and a learning center in the basement. The museum building's design was controversial when it was completed but was widely praised afterward. The building underwent extensive renovations from 1990 to 1992, when the annex was built, and it was renovated again from 2005 to 2008.

The museum's collection has grown over the decades and is founded upon several important private collections, including those of Guggenheim, Karl Nierendorf, Katherine Sophie Dreier, Justin Thannhauser, Rebay, Giuseppe Panza, Robert Mapplethorpe and the Bohen Foundation. The collection, which includes around 8,000 works Template:As of, is shared with sister museums in Bilbao and Venice. In 2023, nearly 861,000 people visited the museum.<ref name=artnews2023>Template:Cite web</ref>

History

Early years and Hilla Rebay

Solomon R. Guggenheim, a member of a wealthy mining family, began collecting works of the old masters in the 1890s.<ref name=artdaily/> In 1926, he met artist Hilla von Rebay,<ref name=artdaily>"Exhibition of Works Reflecting the Evolution of the Guggenheim's Collection Opens in Bilbao", artdaily.org, 2009. Retrieved April 18, 2012.</ref><ref name=Stern808>Template:Harvnb</ref> who introduced him to European avant-garde art, in particular abstract art that she felt had a spiritual and utopian aspect (non-objective art).<ref name=artdaily /> Guggenheim completely changed his collecting strategy, turning to the work of Wassily Kandinsky, among others. He began to display his collection to the public at his apartment in the Plaza Hotel in New York City.<ref name=artdaily /><ref name=past>"Biography: Solomon R. Guggenheim", Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved March 8, 2012.</ref><ref name=Loebl283>Template:Harvnb</ref> Guggenheim and Rebay initially considered building a museum at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.<ref name=Stern808/> As the collection grew, Guggenheim established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, in 1937, to foster the appreciation of modern art.<ref name=Stern808/><ref name=past /><ref name=Krens8>Template:Harvnb</ref>

File:Albert Gleizes, 1915, Composition pour Jazz, oil on cardboard, 73 x 73 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.jpg

Albert Gleizes, 1915, Composition for "Jazz", oil on cardboard, 73 × 73 cm

The foundation's first venue, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, opened in 1939, under Rebay's direction, at 24 East 54th Street in midtown Manhattan.<ref name=Stern808/><ref name=Krens8/>Template:Sfn Under her guidance, Guggenheim sought to include in the collection the most important examples of non-objective art by early modernists.<ref name=artdaily /><ref name=past /><ref name=Calnek>Calnek, Anthony, et al. The Guggenheim Collection, pp. 39–40, New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2006</ref> He wanted to display the collection at the 1939 New York World's Fair in Queens, but Rebay advocated for a more permanent location in Manhattan.<ref name=Stern808/> By the early 1940s, the foundation had accumulated such a large collection of avant-garde paintings that the need for a permanent museum was apparent,<ref name=Gughistory>Template:Cite web</ref> and Rebay wanted to establish it before Guggenheim died.<ref name=Stern808/>

Design process

In 1943, Rebay and Guggenheim wrote a letter to Frank Lloyd Wright asking him to design a structure to house and display the collection.<ref name=Pfeiffer5>Template:Harvnb</ref>Template:Sfn Rebay thought the 76-year-old Wright was dead, but Guggenheim's wife Irene Rothschild Guggenheim knew better and suggested that Rebay contact him.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> Wright accepted the opportunity to experiment with his "organic" style in an urban setting, saying that he had never seen a museum that was "properly designed".<ref name=NYCLint7>Template:Harvnb</ref> He was hired to design the building in June 1943.<ref name=Pfeiffer5/><ref name=Stern807>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=Stern809>Template:Harvnb</ref> He was to receive a 10 percent commission on the project, which was expected to cost at least $1 million.<ref name=Stern809/> It took him 15 years, more than 700 sketches and six sets of working drawings to create and complete the museum, after a series of difficulties and delays;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> the cost eventually doubled from the initial estimate.<ref name=nytCost>Template:Cite news</ref>

Rebay envisioned a space that would facilitate a new way of seeing modern art. She wrote Wright that "each of these great masterpieces should be organized into space, and only you ... would test the possibilities to do so. ... I want a temple of spirit, a monument!"<ref>The Guggenheim: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Making of the Modern Museum, pp. 217–18, New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2009</ref>Template:Sfn Critic Paul Goldberger later wrote that Wright's modernist building was a catalyst for change, making it "socially and culturally acceptable for an architect to design a highly expressive, intensely personal museum. In this sense almost every museum of our time is a child of the Guggenheim."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Guggenheim is the only museum Wright designed; its urban location required him to design it in a vertical rather than horizontal form, far different from his earlier, rural works.<ref name=Storrer401/> Since he was not licensed as an architect in New York, he relied on Arthur Cort Holden, of the architectural firm Holden, McLaughlin & Associates, to deal with New York City's Board of Standards and Appeals.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

File:Double spiral and helicoidal flight staircase at the entrance to the Vatican Museums designed by Giuseppe Momo 1932..jpg

Staircase at the Vatican Museums designed by Giuseppe Momo in 1932

From 1943 to early 1944, Wright produced four differing designs. One had a hexagonal shape and level floors for the galleries, though all the others had circular schemes and used a ramp continuing around the building.<ref name=McCarter310>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=Hitchcock1981>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Efn In his notes, he indicated that he wanted a "well proportioned floor space from bottom to top—a wheel chair going around and up and down".<ref name=NYCLint7/><ref name=Stern809/><ref name=Pfeiffer6>Template:Harvnb</ref> His original concept was called an inverted "ziggurat", because it resembled the steep steps on the ziggurats built in ancient Mesopotamia.<ref name=NYCLint7 /><ref name=Storrer401/> Several architecture professors have speculated that the helical ramp and glass dome of Giuseppe Momo's 1932 staircase at the Vatican Museums was an inspiration for Wright's ramp and atrium.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Site selection and announcement of plans

Wright expected that the museum would be in lower Manhattan.<ref name=McCarter308>Template:Harvnb</ref> Instead, in March 1944, Rebay and Guggenheim acquired a site on Manhattan's Upper East Side, at the corner of 89th Street and the Museum Mile section of Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park.<ref name=Stern809/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=NPS19>Template:Harvnb</ref> They considered numerous locations in Manhattan, as well as the Riverdale section of the Bronx, overlooking the Hudson River.<ref name=Stern809/><ref name=Ballon>Template:Harvnb</ref> Guggenheim felt that the Fifth Avenue site's proximity to Central Park was important, as the park afforded relief from the noise, congestion and concrete of the city.<ref name=Storrer401>Template:Harvnb</ref> Wright's preliminary sketches fit the site nearly perfectly, although the site was about Template:Convert narrower than what Wright anticipated.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> Guggenheim approved Wright's sketches in mid-1944.<ref name=Stern809/> Wright called the planned building an "Archeseum ... a building in which to see the highest".<ref name=NPS19/><ref name=NYCL8>Template:Harvnb</ref>

Wright's designs were announced in July 1945,<ref name=NPS19/> and the museum was expected to cost $1 million and be completed within a year.<ref name="nyt-1945-07-10">Template:Cite news</ref> The structure's main feature was a main gallery with a helical ramp, surrounding a lightwell with a skylight.<ref name="nyt-1945-07-10" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Guests would board an elevator to reach the top; a second, steeper ramp would serve as an emergency exit.<ref name=Stern809/> There would be a movie theater in the basement, an elevator tower topped by an observatory, and a smaller building featuring a smaller theater,<ref name=Pfeiffer21>Template:Harvnb</ref> in addition to storage space, a library and a cafe.<ref name="nyt-1945-07-10" /><ref name=NYCLint8>Template:Harvnb</ref> Preliminary plans also included apartments for Guggenheim and Rebay, but these plans were scrapped.<ref name=Pfeiffer21/> Guggenheim acquired an additional parcel of land on 88th Street that July.<ref name=Stern811>Template:Harvnb</ref> Wright built a model of the museum at Taliesin, his home in Wisconsin,<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> and displayed it at the Plaza Hotel that September.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="nyt-1945-09-21">Template:Cite news</ref>

Difficulties

The building's construction was delayed, first because of material shortages caused by World War II,<ref name=Stern811/><ref name="New York Herald Tribune 1946"/> then by increasing construction costs after the war.<ref name=Pfeiffer21/><ref name=Stern811/> By late 1946, Guggenheim and Rebay had redesigned the basement theater to accommodate concerts.<ref name="New York Herald Tribune 1946">Template:Cite news</ref> Rebay and Wright disagreed over several aspects of the design, such as the means by which the paintings were to be mounted,<ref name=Stern811/><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> although they both wanted the design to "reflect the unity of art and architecture".<ref name=NPS23>Template:Harvnb</ref> Wright continued to modify his plans during the late 1940s, largely because of concerns over the building's lighting, and created another model of the museum in 1947.<ref name=Pfeiffer25>Template:Harvnb</ref> The collection was greatly expanded in 1948 through the purchase of art dealer Karl Nierendorf's estate of some 730 works.<ref name=Calnek/>

Progress remained stalled through the late 1940s,<ref name=Stern812>Template:Harvnb</ref> and William Muschenheim renovated an existing townhouse on the site, at 1071 Fifth Avenue, for the museum's use.<ref name=Stern812 /><ref name=NPS22>Template:Harvnb</ref> Guggenheim's health was in decline, but he refused Wright's offer to downsize the planned building so it could be completed during Guggenheim's lifetime.<ref name=Pfeiffer25/> After Guggenheim died in 1949, members of the Guggenheim family on the foundation's board of directors had personal and philosophical differences with Rebay.<ref name=Rebaybio>"Biography: Hilla Rebay", Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved March 8, 2012.</ref> Under Rebay's leadership, the museum had become what Aline B. Saarinen described as an "esoteric, occult place in which a mystic language was spoken".<ref name="nyt-1954-05-30">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=NPS15>Template:Harvnb</ref> Some of the museum's staff and trustees wished to oust Rebay and cancel Wright's design.<ref name=Stern812 /><ref name=NPS22/> Wright, however, persuaded several members of the Guggenheim family to acquire additional land on Fifth Avenue so his design could be developed in full.<ref name=Stern812/><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

To accommodate the growing collection, in August 1951 the Guggenheim Foundation acquired an apartment building at 1 East 88th Street to remodel for museum use.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Newsday 1951">Template:Cite news</ref> It now owned a continuous frontage on Fifth Avenue from 88th to 89th Street.<ref name="Newsday 1951"/><ref name=Pfeiffer29>Template:Harvnb</ref> This prompted Wright to redesign the new building yet again, proposing a multi-story annex with apartments behind the museum.<ref name=Stern812/><ref name=Pfeiffer29/><ref name=NPS23/> The foundation also announced that the museum would start exhibiting "objective" works of art, as well as older artwork.<ref name=NPS15/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Rebay, who disagreed with this policy, resigned as director of the museum in March 1952.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="nyt-1952-03-30">Template:Cite news</ref> Nevertheless, she left a portion of her personal collection to the foundation in her will.<ref name=cork>"Guggenheim Museum New York", Encyclopedia of Art, visual-arts-cork.com. Retrieved April 18, 2012.</ref> Shortly after Rebay resigned, Wright filed plans for the building, which was now projected to cost $2 million.<ref name=nytCost/> It was renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952.<ref name=Rebaybio/>

Sweeney era

James Johnson Sweeney was appointed the museum's director in October 1952.<ref name="nyt-1952-10-15">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He expanded the foundation's collecting criteria, rejecting Rebay's dismissal of "objective" painting and sculpture,<ref name=Krens11a>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name="nyt-1954-05-11">Template:Cite news</ref> and started exhibiting some of the works placed in storage under Rebay's leadership.<ref name=NPS15/><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> In 1953, the museum hosted a retrospective of Wright's work, "Sixty Years of Living Architecture",<ref name=NPS26>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> in a temporary pavilion Wright had designed.<ref name=Pfeiffer33/><ref name=Stern812/>

Construction and opening

File:Guggenheim Museum construction LOC gsc.5a25494.jpg

Photo of the construction, November 12, 1957

Sweeney and Wright had a strained relationship, as they disagreed over basic elements of the museum's plan.<ref name=Stern812/><ref name="NPS pp. 23–24">Template:Harvnb</ref> Sweeney, who believed its architecture should be subservient to the art, forced Wright to redesign it to accommodate more offices and storage facilities.<ref name="NPS pp. 23–24"/> The building's lighting was a significant point of contention between them.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Stern814>Template:Harvnb</ref> The New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) also rejected Wright's application for a construction permit in 1953 because the design did not meet building codes.<ref name="nyt-1959-04-10">Template:Cite news</ref> Wright tasked Holden with ensuring that the design met codes<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> and published revised drawings in 1954 and 1956.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> Museum staff nevertheless complained that Wright's design did not provide enough storage or laboratory space.<ref name="nyt-1959-04-10" /> To save money, he modified the design again in 1955, though these savings were canceled out by increasing construction costs.<ref name=Stern814/>

Four general contractors submitted bids in late 1954,<ref name=Stern814/> and the foundation ultimately hired the Euclid Construction Corporation.<ref name="Newsday 1956">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Pfeiffer33>Template:Harvnb</ref> The museum rented the Oliver Gould Jennings House at 7 East 72nd Street and relocated there before construction began.<ref name=Stern814/> On May 6, 1956, demolition of the site's existing buildings began.<ref name="Newsday 1956"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The DOB issued a construction permit on May 23,<ref name=Stern814/> and work on the museum began on August 14.<ref name=Pfeiffer33 /><ref name=Stern814/> Wright opened an office in New York City to oversee the construction, which he felt required his personal attention, and appointed his son-in-law William Wesley Peters to supervise the day-to-day work.<ref name=Stern812/><ref name=Pfeiffer33/> In practice, neither Wright nor Peters visited the site frequently, so Holden's William Short ended up managing the project.<ref name=Stern814/>

Sweeney wanted the new museum to allow "building up a collection which offers up a standard of judgment".<ref name="nyt-1956-11-18">Template:Cite news</ref> He wanted to change the color scheme, level out the sloping walls and remove the clerestory windows, which led to prolonged disputes with Wright.<ref name=NPS25/><ref name=Stern816/><ref name=Pfeiffer34>Template:Harvnb</ref> By early 1958, Harry F. Guggenheim had to handle all communications between Sweeney and Wright, who would not speak to each other.<ref name=Stern816>Template:Harvnb</ref> The building topped out in May 1958,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name=Stern815>Template:Harvnb</ref> and the scaffolding on the facade was removed by that August.<ref name=Stern815/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Meanwhile, Wright published drawings of the design in several architectural magazines, as he feared the design would be compromised after his death.<ref name=Stern816/><ref name=NPS25>Template:Harvnb</ref> Against his request, Sweeney painted the walls white and hung paintings from metal bars instead of placing them directly on the walls.<ref name=NPS25/><ref name=Pfeiffer34/> The building was Wright's last major work; he died in April 1959, six months before its opening.<ref name=time>"Art: Last Monument". Time. November 2, 1959.</ref>

The building soft-opened for members of the media on October 20, 1959.<ref name=Stern816/> It was formally dedicated the next day,Template:Sfn<ref name="nyt-1959-10-22">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Bird 1959">Template:Cite news</ref> drawing 600 visitors per hour.<ref name="Bird 1959"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Its design was generally able to accommodate the retrospectives and temporary exhibits that it hosted over the years.<ref name=Loebl283/>

Messer era

Sweeney resigned as the museum's director in July 1960, citing philosophical differences with the board of trustees,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="nyt-1960-07-21">Template:Cite news</ref> and H. H. Arnason took over as temporary director.<ref name=NPS15/><ref name="nyt-1960-12-07">Template:Cite news</ref> He launched "the first survey of Abstract Expressionism in a New York museum" during his brief time as director.<ref name=NPS15/><ref name=Krens19>Template:Harvnb</ref> Thomas M. Messer, director of the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, succeeded Sweeney as director in January 1961; he worked under Sweeney, who continued to run the foundation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Messer stayed for 27 years, the longest tenure of any director of a major New York art institution.Template:Sfn Under his leadership, the museum's collection expanded significantly.<ref name=NPS16>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb</ref> The collection pivoted toward more contemporary artists, including those from Europe and Latin America,<ref name=NPS16/> and expanded in scope to become "New York's second museum of modern art".<ref name="n162068271">Template:Cite news</ref> Messer was not considered "an especially controversial director", though he also did not adhere to "the blockbuster school of exhibiting".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

1960s

File:Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum skylight.jpg

The skylight in the center of the museum

When Messer joined the Guggenheim, the museum's ability to present artworks was still doubted because of the tilted and curved walls.<ref name=Russell1987a>Template:Cite news</ref> Almost immediately after becoming director, in 1962, he put on a large exhibition that combined the Guggenheim's paintings with sculptures on loan from the Hirshhorn collection.<ref name=Russell1987a/> In particular, there were difficulties installing three-dimensional sculptures because the slope of the floor and the curvature of the walls could combine to produce vexing optical illusions.<ref name=Canaday1962>Template:Cite news</ref> Though the combination proved generally to work well in the Guggenheim, Messer recalled that, at the time, "I was scared. I half felt that this would be my last exhibition."<ref name=Russell1987a/> He had staged a smaller sculpture exhibition the previous year, where he learned how to compensate for the space's unusual geometry by constructing special plinths at a particular angle, but this was impossible for one piece, an Alexander Calder mobile whose wire inevitably hung at a true plumb vertical.<ref name=Canaday1962/>

After Messer acquired a private collection from art dealer Justin Thannhauser in 1963,<ref name="Spiegler 1963">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="nyt-1963-10-24">Template:Cite news</ref> the Guggenheim hired Peters to renovate the monitor's second floor.<ref name=Pfeiffer37>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=NYCL12/> Thannhauser's collection was displayed within the monitor after the renovation was completed in 1965.<ref name=NYCL12>Template:Harvnb</ref>Template:Sfn The foundation auctioned off artwork from the 15th and 16th centuries, which was incompatible with the museum's modern-art collection.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Rebay, who died in 1967, bequeathed over 600 artworks to the Guggenheim, although the museum did not receive the collection until 1971.<ref name="nyt-1971-05-15">Template:Cite news</ref> To raise money for further acquisitions, such as the works in Rebay's collections, the Guggenheim also sold off some modern artwork, including several Kandinsky works.<ref name="nyt-1971-08-16">Template:Cite news</ref>

To accommodate the expanding collection, in 1963, the Guggenheim announced plans for a four-story annex,<ref name="nyt-1963-10-10">Template:Cite news</ref> which the New York City Board of Standards and Appeals approved the next year.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> William Wesley Peters of Taliesin Associated Architects, the successor firm to Wright's practice, designed the addition.<ref name="Goldberger x465">Template:Cite web</ref> The annex was downsized to two stories in 1966 due to complaints from local residents,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and was completed in 1968.<ref name=Pfeiffer37/><ref name="NPS pp. 7–8"/> This freed up space on the main gallery's top two levels, which had been used as workshops and storage space ever since the building opened. Museum officials opened the top levels to the public in 1968.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

1970s and 1980s

In 1971, with increasing costs and decreasing endowment income, the Guggenheim recorded a large deficit for the first time in its history.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Additionally, although Wright had included space for a cafe at the southern end of the museum building, the space was instead used by the conservation and framing departments.<ref name=Pfeiffer37/> The foundation proposed adding a lobby and restaurant in the museum's driveway area in early 1973<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> but had difficulty agreeing on the plans,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> which were revised that November.<ref name="nyt-1973-11-10">Template:Cite news</ref> As part of the project, designed by Donald E. Freed, the museum closed its driveway and added a dining area and bookstore there.<ref name="nyt-1973-11-10" /><ref name="NYCL pp. 12–13"/> Facing a growing deficit and a shortage of exhibit space, the Guggenheim announced in 1977 that it would raise $20 million over the following five years.<ref name="nyt-1977-12-24">Template:Cite news</ref> Museum officials also planned to expand the annex on 89th Street.<ref name="nyt-1977-12-24" />

Messer became director of the Guggenheim Foundation in 1980 and continued to serve as the museum director, promoting two curators to directorial positions.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Guggenheim renovated the Thannhauser wing in the early 1980s.<ref name="nyt-1982-11-28">Template:Cite news</ref> Following these changes, John Russell of The New York Times wrote that the Thannhauser Collection "may now be said to be the equivalent of the Frick in the domain of modern art."<ref name="nyt-1982-11-28" /> "Works & Process", a series of performances at the Guggenheim, commenced in 1984.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1982 Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects drew up designs for an 11-story annex on 88th Street, behind the existing museum building.<ref name=NYCL13/> The original plan, announced in February 1985,<ref name="Goldberger x465" /><ref name="n162091115">Template:Cite news</ref> would have been cantilevered over the existing building.<ref name=NYCL13>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The design was downsized to 10 stories in early 1987 due to opposition from local residents.<ref name="nyt-1987-02-11">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> At the time, the building could only exhibit 150 pieces, about 3 percent of the museum's 5000-work collection.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In anticipation of the annex's construction and a wider-ranging renovation of the older building, Gwathmey Siegel also renovated the Thannhauser wing's second floor and the top level of the main gallery's ramp in 1987.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The Board of Standards and Appeals approved the 89th Street annex that October,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> despite continuing opposition.<ref name="nyt-1990-11-28">Template:Cite news</ref> Messer retired the next month, on the 50th anniversary of the collection's founding.<ref name="nyt-1987-11-05">Template:Cite news</ref> The New York City Board of Estimate approved plans for the Guggenheim's annex in 1988,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and the New York Supreme Court upheld the Board of Estimate's decision.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Krens era

Thomas Krens, former director of the Williams College Museum of Art, took over as the director of both the museum and the foundation in January 1988.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Over his nearly two-decade tenure, he led a rapid expansion of the museum's collections,<ref name="nyt-2008-02-28">Template:Cite news</ref> and the museum mounted some of its most popular exhibitions,<ref name=nyt-2005-04-27>Template:Cite news</ref> including "Africa: The Art of a Continent" in 1996;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> "China: 5,000 Years" in 1998;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> "Brazil: Body & Soul" in 2001;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and "The Aztec Empire" in 2004.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Unusual exhibitions included "The Art of the Motorcycle", an industrial design installation of motorcycles.<ref name=Sudjic/><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Template:AnchorThe Guggenheim Museum SoHo, designed by Arata Isozaki, opened in June 1992 at the corner of Broadway and Prince Street in SoHo, Manhattan.<ref name="Smith 1992 g499">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Wallach 1992 f827">Template:Cite web</ref> The SoHo building's exhibits included Marc Chagall and the Jewish Theater, Paul Klee at the Guggenheim Museum, Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective and Andy Warhol: The Last Supper.<ref name=nyt-1999-02-05/> It did not meet visitor forecasts<ref name=nyt-1999-02-05>Template:Cite news</ref> and closed in 2002.<ref name="nyt-2002-06-30"/>

1990s

File:Guggenheim flw show.jpg

An interior view of the museum on a busy day

Shortly after becoming director, Krens decided to spend $24 million renovating the Guggenheim.<ref name="nyt-1991-08-12">Template:Cite news</ref> Work commenced in late 1989. The museum initially remained open,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> but later closed for 18 months.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The monitor wing was restored, the 88th Street wing was converted from a conservation laboratory to a restaurant, and additional exhibition space was created at the top of the main gallery.<ref name="nyt-1991-08-12" /> The 89th Street annex was built as part of this project,<ref name="Wallach 1992 f827"/><ref name="nyt-1990-11-28" /> and the basement was extended under Fifth Avenue.<ref name="nyt-1991-08-122">Template:Cite news</ref> The windows were replaced and the clerestory windows along the ramp were unsealed and restored to their original design.<ref name="nyt-1991-08-122" /><ref name=Sennott572>Template:Harvnb</ref> The building's exhibition space roughly doubled, allowing the museum to show 6 percent of its collection.<ref name="Kimball 1992">Template:Cite news</ref>

The renovation was completed on June 27, 1992.<ref name="nyt-1992-06-28">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="McGuigan 1992">Template:Cite magazine</ref> The museum's offices were moved to the annex, the basement and the former Guggenheim Museum SoHo, and storage space and conservation activities were moved to other buildings.<ref name="nyt-1991-08-122" /> The new annex allowed the museum to show more works from its permanent collection, as well as temporary exhibitions.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The foundation acquired 200 photographs from Robert Mapplethorpe in 1992<ref name="nyt-1992-12-04">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Wallach 1992">Template:Cite news</ref> and renamed the annex's fourth-floor gallery after him in 1993.<ref name="nyt-1993-12-26">Template:Cite news</ref>

To finance the renovation and new acquisitions, the foundation sold works by Kandinsky, Chagall and Modigliani, raising $47 million. This move was controversial, drawing considerable criticism for trading masters for "trendy" latecomers. In The New York Times, critic Michael Kimmelman wrote that the sales "stretched the accepted rules of deaccessioning further than many American institutions have been willing to do."<ref name=Sennott572/><ref name=Kimmelman1998>Template:Cite news</ref> Krens defended the action as consistent with the museum's principles by expanding its international collection and building its "postwar collection to the strength of our pre-war holdings",<ref name=Glueck>Template:Cite news</ref> and noted that museums regularly conduct such sales.<ref name=Kimmelman1998/> He also expanded the foundation's international presence by opening museums abroad.<ref>Russell, James S. "Guggenheim's Krens Eyes Hudson Yards Museum, Seeks New Bilbaos", Bloomberg, March 11, 2008. Retrieved March 13, 2012.</ref>

Krens was also criticized for his businesslike style and perceived populism and commercialization.<ref name="Sudjic">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> One writer commented, "Krens has been both praised and vilified for turning what was once a small New York institution into a worldwide brand, creating the first truly multinational arts institution. ... Krens transformed the Guggenheim into one of the best-known brand names in the arts."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The museum cut back its operating hours in 1994, causing a 25 percent decline in annual attendance, even as the city's other art museums saw increased attendance.<ref name="Plagens 1996">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Samuel J. LeFrak announced in December 1993 that he would donate $10 million, the largest cash donation in the museum's history, with the Fifth Avenue building to be renamed for him and his wife.<ref name="nyt-1993-12-14">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The next month, Ronald O. Perelman announced that he would also donate $10 million.<ref name="nyt-1994-01-20">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), which had designated the building as a landmark, repeatedly refused to allow officials to place a sign with LeFrak's name outside the building.<ref name="nyt-1994-12-17">Template:Cite news</ref> Consequently, LeFrak rescinded $8 million of his donation.<ref name="nyt-1994-12-17" /><ref name="Plagens 1996"/> Peter B. Lewis donated $10 million in 1995<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> for the restoration of the museum's auditorium, which was renamed the Peter B. Lewis Theater after the project was completed the next year.<ref name="Plagens 1996"/><ref name="nyt-1998-04-15">Template:Cite news</ref> Lewis donated an additional $50 million in 1998, and several other trustees, including Perelman, increased their donations.<ref name="nyt-1998-04-15" />

2000s

File:Sackler Center for Arts Education entrance view from 5th ave 88th street ramp March 2012.jpg

Students sketching at the entrance to the Engelberg Center

The museum opened an arts center in the basement in 2001; originally named for the Sackler family,<ref name=Tu2002>Template:Cite news</ref> it was renamed the Gail May Engelberg Center for Arts Education in 2022.<ref name=Block2022/><ref name=Donnelly2022/> Also in 2001, as part of a Frank Gehry retrospective at the museum, Gehry designed a canopy, which was installed outside the fifth floor.<ref name=AR2002June>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="nyt-2001-05-18">Template:Cite news</ref> It remained in place for six years after the retrospective ended.<ref name=AR2002June/><ref name="nyt-2004-06-10" />

By 2004, museum officials were raising $25 million for another restoration of the building and hired Swanke Hayden Connell Architects to survey it. By then, the structure had developed numerous leaks.<ref name="nyt-2004-06-10">Template:Cite news</ref> After architects and engineers determined that the building was structurally sound, renovations began in September 2005 to repair cracks and modernize systems and exterior details.<ref name=Haeyoun>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Guggenheim Museum web site: click link to podcast about restoration (10 MB, audio only, 8 min 45 sec)</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The restoration mainly consisted of exterior and infrastructure upgrades, preserving as many historical details as possible while allowing museum operations to continue.<ref>Guggenheim Museum web site: click link to podcast about restoration (10 MB, audio only, 8 min 45 sec) Template:Webarchive</ref><ref name=AR2006Feb>Template:Cite magazine</ref> On September 22, 2008, the Guggenheim celebrated the project's completion with the premiere of artist Jenny Holzer's tribute For the Guggenheim.<ref name="nyt-2008-09-23">Template:Cite news</ref> The renovation cost $29 million and was funded by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's board of trustees, the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York state government and MAPEI Corporation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Meanwhile, during the early 2000s, Krens was involved in a long-running dispute with Lewis, who was also chairman of the foundation's board of directors.<ref name="nyt-2005-01-21">Template:Cite news</ref> When admission declined by 60 percent following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the museum faced budgetary deficits, as one-quarter of its revenue came from ticket sales.<ref name="nyt-2001-11-20">Template:Cite news</ref> Lewis donated $12 million to the museum in 2002 under the condition that Krens tighten the budget.<ref name="nyt-2002-12-06">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Despite having given $77 million, more than any other donor in the Guggenheim's history,<ref name="nyt-2005-01-21" /><ref name="The Journal News 2005">Template:Cite news</ref> Lewis did not have as much influence over the board's decisions as did top donors at the city's other art museums.<ref name="nyt-2005-01-21" /> Lewis resigned from the board of directors in 2005, expressing opposition to Krens's plans for additional museums around the world.<ref name="The Journal News 2005" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Longtime curator Lisa Dennison was hired as the museum's new director in 2005, working under Krens, who continued to direct the foundation.<ref name="nyt-2005-09-21">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> By 2006, the museum faces a $35 million deficit, even as Dennison rejected the idea of funding exhibits through corporate sponsorships.<ref name="Wilson 2006">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Dennison resigned in July 2007 to work at auction house Sotheby's.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Tensions between Krens and the board continued, and Krens stepped down as foundation director in February 2008.<ref name="nyt-2008-02-28" />

Armstrong era

File:Richard Armstrong 2012.png

Richard Armstrong, 2012

Richard Armstrong, former director of the Carnegie Museum of Art, became the director of the museum and the foundation in November 2008.<ref name="nyt-2008-09-23"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The New York Times said the Guggenheim Foundation had selected him because his "calmer, steadier presence" contrasted with the "nearly 20 often tumultuous years of Mr. Krens's maverick vision".<ref name="nyt-2008-09-03">Template:Cite news</ref> In addition to its permanent collections, which continued to grow under his direction,<ref name=artdaily/> the foundation has administered loan exhibitions and co-organized exhibitions with other museums to foster public outreach.<ref name=websiteCollab>Template:Cite web</ref> The museum hosted exhibitions such as America (2016), one of the smallest ever hosted there.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

About 140 maintenance workers and art installers joined a labor union in 2019, the first time the museum's employees had unionized.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Davis2019>Template:Cite web</ref> That year, Chaédria LaBouvier became the first black woman curator to create a solo exhibition and first black person to write a text published by the museum.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Lewis2022/> She accused the museum of racism and alleged that, among other things, officials withheld resources and refused to let journalists interview her, though an article in The Atlantic described LaBouvier as being hostile toward people who commented on her exhibition.<ref name=Lewis2022>Template:Cite web</ref> Within a month of these criticisms, the museum hired its first full-time black curator, Ashley James.<ref name=nyt-2019-11-15>Template:Cite news</ref> An investigation by a law firm hired by the museum found "no evidence that Ms. LaBouvier was subject to adverse treatment on the basis of her race".<ref name="nyt-2020-10-08"/> The museum's Artistic Director and Chief Curator, Nancy Spector, left the institution in 2020 after 34 years.<ref name=Lewis2022/><ref name="nyt-2020-10-08">Template:Cite news</ref> The Guggenheim approved a plan for increasing racial diversity in August 2020,<ref name="nyt-2020-08-17a">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Holmes2020>Template:Cite web</ref> and it hired a "chief culture and inclusion officer" in 2021.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guggenheim temporarily closed in March 2020.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It reopened that October,<ref name=CBSNews2020>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=ABC7NewYork2020>Template:Cite web</ref> recording a monthly net loss of $1.4 million while closed.<ref name="nyt-2020-09-16">Template:Cite news</ref> It fired numerous staff members during the pandemic.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2022, the Guggenheim began hosting a poet-in-residence program, the first such program at a visual-art museum.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Armstrong announced in mid-2022 that he planned to resign in 2023,<ref name=FinancialTimes2022>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and he left the museum at the end of 2023.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Westermann era

In June 2024, Mariët Westermann became the Guggenheim's first female director.<ref name=Tremayne>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> She had been the vice chancellor of New York University Abu Dhabi since 2019 and was its provost when it was formed in 2007 and was responsible for, among other things, its first climate action plan.<ref name=Tremayne/> She holds Master's and Ph.D. degrees in the History of Art from New York University Institute of Fine Arts.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Following unsuccessful attempts to steady the museum's finances by expanding the endowment, increasing ticket prices and reducing the number of exhibits, Westermann terminated about 7% of the museum's staff in early 2025.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Architecture

Wright's design for the Guggenheim Museum incorporated geometric motifs, such as squares, circles, rectangles, triangles and lozenges. The massing contains two spiraling structures, the six-story main gallery to the south and the smaller "monitor" to the north, which are connected by a "bridge" on the second story. The ten-story rectangular annex, to the northeast, appears behind the spiraling structures as viewed from Central Park.<ref name=NPS3>Template:Harvnb</ref>

The building embodies Wright's attempts "to render the inherent plasticity of organic forms in architecture".Template:Sfn Wright's design included details inspired by nature,<ref name=Ballon/> although it also expresses his take on modernist architecture's rigid geometry.Template:Sfn Wright described a symbolic meaning to the building's shapes: "[T]hese geometric forms suggest certain human ideas, moods, sentiments – as for instance: the circle, infinity; the triangle, structural unity; the spiral, organic progress; the square, integrity."<ref>Rudenstine, Angelica Zander. The Guggenheim Museum Collection: Paintings, 1880–1945, New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1976, p. 204</ref> Forms echo one another throughout: oval-shaped columns, for example, reiterate the geometry of the fountain. Circularity is the leitmotif, from the main gallery to the inlays in the museum's terrazzo floors.<ref name=Ballon/>

Exterior

Wright originally wanted to construct a marble facade,<ref name=Sennott572/><ref name="McCarter pp. 315, 318">Template:Harvnb</ref> but builder George N. Cohen constructed the facade of gunite, a type of sprayed concrete, as a cost-cutting measure.<ref name="nyt-1991-08-122" /> Wright's and Cohen's names appear on a tile placed along the building's exterior; this is likely the only time when Wright and a builder shared credit for a building's construction.<ref name="nyt-1991-08-122" /><ref name=Waldek2019>Template:Cite web</ref> Wright had also proposed a red-colored exterior, which was never realized.<ref name=McCarter310/><ref>Bianchini, Riccardo. "The Guggenheim, an American revolution", inexhibit.com, 2014, accessed July 5, 2014.</ref><ref name=Waldek2019/> Instead, the facade was covered in an ivory-colored coating of vinyl plastic,<ref name=NPS4>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name="The New York Times 1958">Template:Cite news</ref> known as a "cocoon".<ref name="The New York Times 1958" /><ref name="Cohen 1958">Template:Cite news</ref> The engineers involved in the original construction thought that the "cocoon" would not crack, so the facade was built without expansion joints; they were wrong: the facade cracked in subsequent years.<ref name=AR2006Feb/> During subsequent renovations, conservators found that the facade was originally painted brownish yellow, which was covered with numerous coats of white or off-white paint over the years.<ref name=Waldek2019/>

The sidewalk in front of the museum acts as a forecourt, with metal circles inset into its surface, similar in design to the floor inside the museum. Next to the sidewalk are curving parapets that surround planting beds, some of which are below ground level.<ref name=NYCL10>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=NPS7>Template:Harvnb</ref> The planting beds originally contained shrubs, sycamore trees and other vegetation.<ref name="nyt-1959-05-27">Template:Cite news</ref>

Original building

The museum's main entrance is at the center of the Fifth Avenue facade.<ref name=NYCL10 /><ref name=NPS6/> It consists of an aluminum-framed glass wall with several doors, recessed within a low foyer. A doorway directly in front of the entrance leads to the bookstore, while the museum galleries are accessed by doors to the right.<ref name=NYCL10/><ref name=NPS6>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=McCarter311>Template:Harvnb</ref> Above the main entrance is a "bridge" connecting the main gallery and monitor building, which is supported by several lozenge-shaped piers.<ref name=NPS6/> The underside of the bridge contains recessed lighting that illuminates the main entrance.<ref name=NYCL10/><ref name=NPS6/> The main entrance was originally the entrance to a driveway that curved toward 89th Street, with separate entrances to the monitor and main gallery.<ref name=McCarter308/><ref name=NPS6/> The glass wall was installed after the driveway was closed in the 1970s, and the museum's bookstore was placed directly behind the wall.<ref name="NYCL pp. 12–13">Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> To the south of the main entrance is a curved wall, which forms the base of the main gallery.<ref name="NYCL pp. 10–11">Template:Harvnb</ref> There is a ramp adjacent to this wall, which leads to the basement auditorium.<ref name=NPS7/><ref name="NYCL pp. 10–11" />

At the southeast corner of the museum, on 88th Street, is a rectangular structure, which contains no openings except for five circular portals at ground level.<ref name=NPS6/><ref name=NYCL11>Template:Harvnb</ref> The structure contains the museum's cafe, which was part of Wright's original plans but was not developed until 1992. The second floor of the rectangular structure contains the High Gallery.<ref name=NPS6/> Immediately to the east, on 88th Street, is an aluminum service gate with circular designs.<ref name=NPS6/><ref name=NYCL11/>

The bridge, which carries the Guggenheim's second story, projects at the museum's southwest corner. The museum's name stretches along the bottom edge of the bridge's Fifth Avenue facade.<ref name=NPS7/> The main gallery rises above the southern part of the bridge; it consists of a "bowl"-shaped massing, with several concrete "bands" separated by recessed aluminum skylights.<ref name=NYCL11/> From the street, the building looks like a white ribbon curled into a cylindrical stack, wider at the top than the bottom, displaying nearly all curved surfaces. Its appearance is in sharp contrast to the typically rectangular Manhattan buildings that surround it, a fact relished by Wright, who claimed that his museum would make the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Art "look like a Protestant barn".<ref name=time/> At the top of the "bowl" is a parapet, which surrounds three smaller skylights, as well as the large twelve-sided dome atop the main gallery.<ref name=NYCL11/>

The northern part of the bridge contains a four-story wing, originally known as the monitor. Although the monitor's interior is cylindrical, its exterior contains different materials and shapes on each story.<ref name=NPS5/> The monitor's first two stories contain a round concrete facade,<ref name=NPS5>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=AR190>Template:Harvnb</ref> while the upper two stories are cantilevered outward from the monitor's core.<ref name=AR190/> The third story contains rectangular aluminum windows with semicircular panes at their tops.<ref name=NYCL11/> The fourth story contains a square terrace and additional windows.<ref name=NYCL11/><ref name=NPS5/> Above the fourth story is a fascia with lozenge patterns, as well as a hexagonal roof with an aluminum frame. The roof is interrupted by a lozenge-shaped shaft, which contains a stairway.<ref name=NYCL11/><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

Annex

A ten-story tower at the museum's northeastern corner, with offices, artist's studios and apartments, included in Wright's 1951 plan for the museum, was a rectangular structure, aligned on a north–south axis; it would have contained porches at each story on the northern and southern elevations.<ref name=NPS7/> Wright's original plan for the tower went unrealized, largely for financial reasons, until the 1990–1992 renovation and expansion.<ref name=GSwebsite>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=NPS8>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=ArchDaily>Perez, Adelyn. "AD Classics: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum", May 18, 2010. Retrieved March 21, 2012.</ref> Instead William Wesley Peters designed a shorter wing on the site in 1968, with two double-height floors. This wing was made of concrete, with relief carvings of squares and octagons on its facade, and housed the museum's library, storage space and the Thannhauser Gallery.<ref name=NYCL12/><ref name="NPS pp. 7–8">Template:Harvnb</ref> Its steel framework could accommodate the weight of six additional stories if it were expanded.<ref name=Pfeiffer37/><ref name="NPS pp. 7–8"/>

Gwathmey Siegel & Associates designed a 10-story annex that was built during the 1990s renovation.<ref name=GSwebsite/><ref name=NPS8/> The annex, measuring Template:Convert wide and Template:Convert tall, uses the 1968 wing's steel framework.<ref name=NPS8/> During the renovation, Gwathmey Siegel removed the 1968 concrete facade and replaced it with a limestone grid.<ref name=ArchDaily/><ref name=NPS8/> They analyzed Wright's original sketches when they designed the tower.<ref name="Kimball 1992"/><ref name=ArchDaily/>

Interior

The core part of Guggenheim's interior consists of the monitor section to the north, the larger main gallery to the south and a lecture hall beneath the main gallery.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=AR186>Template:Harvnb</ref> To the east of the main entrance is the bookstore, in the area that was originally part of the museum's driveway.<ref name="NYCLint12-NPS7">Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb</ref> To the south of the main entrance is a small circular vestibule, which contains a floor with metal arcs and a low plaster ceiling with recessed lighting.<ref name=NYCLint12>Template:Harvnb</ref> South of the main rotunda is a cafe, added during the 1990s renovation.<ref name=Pfeiffer37/><ref name=NPS7/>

The triangular service core, at the northeast corner of the main gallery, contains an elevator and a staircase.<ref name=NPS3/><ref name=McCarter315>Template:Harvnb</ref> The staircase wraps around the elevator, which is housed within a semicircular shaft;<ref name=McCarter315/><ref name=AR188>Template:Harvnb</ref> the core also contains restrooms and mechanical areas.<ref name=AR188/> According to author Robert McCarter, Wright had used "complete geometries" for the stairs and ramps because he wanted visitors to experience the museum on foot.<ref name=McCarter315/> Other rooms, such as the staff kitchen, were designed with curved equipment because of the interior's unusual design.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The museum's interior is generally painted white, and parts of the interior are repainted nearly every day.<ref name=Waldek2019/>

Main gallery

File:Solomon-R-Guggenheim-Museum-Levels.jpg

The museum's main gallery

Wright designed the main gallery (also described as a rotunda) as an open-air atrium, surrounded by a helical ramp.<ref name=time/><ref name="NYCLint12-NPS4">Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb</ref> Wright's design differed from the conventional approach to museum layout, in which visitors pass through a series of interconnected rooms and retrace their steps when exiting.Template:Sfn Under Wright's plan, guests rode an elevator to the top of the building and descended the ramp, viewing the main gallery itself as a work of art.<ref name=ArchDaily/><ref name=McCarter315/> The ramp's design recalled a nautilus shell, with continuous spaces flowing one into another.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> The open rotunda allows guests to observe works on different levels simultaneously and interact with guests on other levels.<ref name=ArchDaily/> Structurally, the ramp acts like an enormous arch, preventing the columns in the main gallery from collapsing inward.<ref name=AR190/>

The main gallery has a beige terrazzo floor with inlaid metal circles.<ref name="McCarter pp. 315, 318"/><ref name=NYCLint13/> At ground level are wooden information and admissions desks, and windows face southeast toward Fifth Avenue and 88th Street.<ref name=NYCLint13>Template:Harvnb</ref> The ramp, made of reinforced concrete, ascends at a 5 percent slope<ref name=Stern816/><ref name=NPS4/> from ground level and rises one story, where it wraps around a planter and passes through a double-height archway.<ref name=NYCLint13/> It rises five additional stories before ending at the sixth floor,<ref name=Stern816/><ref name="NYCLint13-NPS4">Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb</ref> with a total length of Template:Convert.<ref name=Waldek2019/> Its width increases as it ascends,<ref name=AR185>Template:Harvnb</ref> from Template:Convert on the lowest level to Template:Convert at the top.<ref name=NPS4/> The ramp protrudes into the northeastern corner of the atrium at each story, forming a rounded balcony.<ref name=NYCLint12/> There are connections to other galleries at the second and fourth stories, and to a triangular gallery at the sixth story.<ref name=NYCLint13/> The ramp has a low parapet along the atrium side,<ref name=McCarter318>Template:Harvnb</ref> measuring Template:Convert high.<ref name=Waldek2019/>

The walls and ceilings are made of plaster.<ref name=NYCLint13/><ref name="McCarter318" /> To create the concrete walls, workers sprayed several layers of concrete onto plywood moldings, each layer being reinforced with steel.<ref name=NPS4/><ref name="Cohen 1958"/> Wright intended the low ceilings and slanted walls to provide a "more intimate environment" to display the artwork.<ref name=Pfeiffer7>Template:Harvnb</ref> The walls are tilted at a 97-degree angle, and the ceilings measure Template:Convert tall.<ref name=Stern811/><ref name=NPS4/> Jaroslav Josef Polívka assisted Wright with the structural design, and he initially designed the gallery ramp without perimeter columns.<ref>Jaroslav J. Polívka, "What it's Like to Work with Wright" in Template:Cite book</ref> Later in the design, Wright added a dozen concrete ribs along the walls of the main gallery, which both provide structural reinforcement and divide the ramp into sections.<ref name="NYCLint12-NPS4" /><ref name=McCarter312>Template:Harvnb</ref> The ramp passes through 70 sections in total.<ref name=NPS4/> Although Wright wanted the paintings displayed as if they were on an easel,<ref name=time/><ref name=AR185/> paintings are mounted onto horizontal bars that protrude from the sloped wall.<ref name=Stern818>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name="Wood 1959">Template:Cite news</ref> There is limited space for sculptures within each bay,<ref name=time/> and wider paintings frequently span the center of the curved wall.<ref name="nyt-1977-06-02">Template:Cite news</ref>

The ramp was originally illuminated by clerestory windows along the perimeter of each level,<ref name=McCarter312/> which were sealed when the building was completed.<ref name=McCarter315/><ref name=Stern818/> Each level of the ramp also contains recessed lighting on its ceiling.<ref name=McCarter315/><ref name=NYCLint12/> The domed skylight, named the Lawson-Johnston Family Oculus,<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> is around Template:Convert high<ref name="Wood 1959" /><ref name="Mark 1959">Template:Cite magazine</ref> and is the same width as the atrium.<ref name=McCarter311/> Metal bars divide the skylight into numerous panes. Along the dome are six hairpin-shaped "spokes", which surround a circular glass panel and connect with the "ribs" along the gallery's perimeter.<ref name="NYCLint12" /><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> These spokes divide the skylight into twelve sections.<ref name=McCarter312/><ref name=NYCLint12/> The original plans called for the dome to be illuminated by 24 floodlights.<ref name="Cohen 1958"/> The clerestory windows and skylight were restored in 1992.<ref name=Sennott572/><ref name=McCarter319>Template:Harvnb</ref>

Monitor section

The museum's "monitor" houses the Thannhauser Collection.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Its galleries surround an atrium that is circular except for a stair hall at one end of the space.<ref name=NYCLint13/> The floors are supported by columns with lozenge-shaped cross-sections.<ref name=NYCLint13 /><ref name=AR189>Template:Harvnb</ref> Like the main gallery, the monitor contains a triangular service core, although its core is placed at the center of the structure.<ref name=AR189/> The monitor was originally supposed to include apartments for Rebay and Guggenheim, but this area became offices and storage space.Template:Sfn In 1965, the second floor of the monitor was renovated to display some of the museum's growing permanent collection.<ref name=NPS6/>Template:Sfn Part of the fourth floor was similarly converted in 1980.<ref name=NPS6/> With the restoration of the museum in the early 1990s, the second through fourth floors were converted entirely to exhibition space and renamed the Thannhauser Building.<ref name=Pfeiffer37/><ref name=NPS6/>Template:Sfn

Gail May Engelberg Center for Arts Education

File:Gugenheim theater from back jeh.jpg

Peter B. Lewis Theater

The Gail May Engelberg Center for Arts Education, completed in 2001, covers Template:Convert on the lower level of the museum, below the main gallery.<ref name=Tu2002/> It was a gift of the Mortimer D. Sackler family and was originally named for them.<ref>Template:Cite news; Template:Cite news; and Template:Cite web</ref> The facility provides classes and lectures about the visual and performing arts and opportunities to interact with the museum's collections and special exhibitions through its labs, exhibition spaces, conference rooms and 266-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater.<ref name=Sackler>"Sackler Center for Arts Education" Template:Webarchive, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved March 21, 2012.</ref><ref name=Tu2002/> Following criticism over the Sackler family's involvement in the opioid epidemic in the United States,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the center was renamed in 2022 for museum trustee Gail May Engelberg,<ref name=Block2022>Template:Cite web</ref> who along with her husband Alfred Engelberg had donated $15 million to the museum.<ref name=Donnelly2022>Template:Cite web</ref>

The basement space looks out onto a sloped driveway outside the southwest corner of the museum.<ref name=AR186/> The Peter B. Lewis Theater is directly beneath the main gallery and contains two levels of seating: an orchestra level and a balcony. There is a coatroom at the balcony level, separated from the balcony seats by a metal partition. The southeast corner of the orchestra level contains a raised wooden stage. The theater's walls contain embedded piers, as well as semicircular window openings.<ref name="NYCL (Interior) pp. 13–14" /> The plaster ceiling contains recessed cove lighting.<ref name=AR188/><ref name="NYCL (Interior) pp. 13–14">Template:Harvnb</ref> When the theater was built, it could be accessed directly from the triangular service core, as well as via the driveway outside the museum.<ref name=AR188/>

Annex galleries

The 89th Street annex contains Template:Convert of additional exhibition space.<ref name="McGuigan 1992"/> There are four exhibition galleries with flat walls that are "more appropriate for the display of art".<ref name=ArchDaily/><ref name=GSwebsite/> Each of the gallery levels,<ref name=PA1992Aug>Template:Cite magazine</ref> are double-height spaces.<ref name=Pfeiffer37/><ref name=NPS8/> A loading dock is below the galleries, while two office stories and a mechanical floor are above.<ref name=PA1992Aug/> A steel-and-glass lobby connects the annex to the monitor's ground level, and ramps and passageways connect with the monitor's three upper stories.<ref name=PA1992Aug/> The annex is linked to the main gallery's stair tower at the fourth, fifth and seventh stories.<ref name=Pfeiffer37/><ref name=NPS8/> It also connects to rooftop terraces above the monitor and main gallery.<ref name="McGuigan 1992" /><ref name=PA1992Aug/>

Landmark designations

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the museum building and its interior as New York City landmarks on August 14, 1990,<ref name="nyt-1990-08-19">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> two years after opponents of the annex's construction had asked the commission to consider such a designation.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> At the time, the Guggenheim was one of the youngest buildings to have city landmark status, having been completed 31 years earlier.<ref name=Waldek2019/> When the LPC enlarged its Carnegie Hill Historic District in 1993,<ref name="Diamonstein-Spielvogel 2011 p. 683">Template:Cite landmarks</ref><ref name="Dunlap 1994 i108">Template:Cite web</ref> the Guggenheim Museum was included in the expanded district.<ref>Template:Cite report</ref>

The museum was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on May 19, 2005,<ref name=nris/> and was designated as a National Historic Landmark on October 6, 2008.<ref name=NHL>"National Register of Historic Places; New Listings October 6 – October 10, 2008", NPS.gov, October 17, 2008. Retrieved May 8, 2009.</ref> UNESCO added eight properties, including the Guggenheim, to the World Heritage List in July 2019 under the title "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Collection

The Guggenheim has about 8,000 works in its collection Template:As of.<ref name="wsj-2011-01-21">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=CollectionOnline/> About 1,700 are part of its online collection.<ref name=CollectionOnline>Template:Cite web</ref> The museum building has a relatively small capacity; according to The Wall Street Journal, following the 1992 renovation, the Guggenheim could show "upward of 6%" of its then 5,000-piece collection.<ref name="Kimball 1992"/> Other pieces are kept in the museum's storeroom.<ref name="McGill w240">Template:Cite web</ref> In contrast to other visual-art museums, the Guggenheim does not divide its collection into departments.<ref name="About the Collection">Template:Cite web</ref> The permanent collection is typically displayed in the side galleries and annexes, while the main gallery is used for special exhibitions.<ref name="n162066281">Template:Cite news</ref>

The Guggenheim shares its collection with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain.<ref name="About the Collection" /> It has also loaned objects to Guggenheim Abu Dhabi for a preview exhibit.<ref name="Vogel p555">Template:Cite web</ref> After Peggy Guggenheim's death in 1979, the Guggenheim Foundation began to operate the Venice museum, and Guggenheim New York began to exhibit abstract expressionist, cubist and surrealist art from both the Venice and New York museums together.Template:Sfn

Personal collections

The Guggenheim Museum has acquired private collections throughout its history, including those of Guggenheim, Karl Nierendorf, Katherine Sophie Dreier, Thannhauser, Rebay, Giuseppe Panza, Mapplethorpe and the Bohen Foundation.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Its earliest works include modernists such as Rudolf Bauer, Rebay, Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Marc Chagall, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso.<ref name="cork" /> Parts of the original collection have been sold over the years. In 2007, 620 of the original works were designated part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection,<ref name="nyt-2007-05-11" /> with works by over 60 artists,<ref name="nyt-2007-05-11">Template:Cite news</ref> including more than 150 by Kandinsky.<ref name="Guggenheim Founding Collection">Template:Cite web</ref> The founding collection contains several pieces by Albert Gleizes, including Brooklyn Bridge, Composition for "Jazz" and Portrait of an Army Doctor.<ref name="Guggenheim Founding Collection" /> Pieces such as Chagall's Green Violinist,<ref name="n162066731">Template:Cite news</ref> Franz Marc's Yellow Cow,<ref name="n162067937">Template:Cite news</ref> Jean Metzinger's Woman with a Fan,<ref name="n162068120">Template:Cite news</ref> and Picasso's The Accordionist<ref name="n162068271" /> are also part of the founding collection.<ref name="Guggenheim Founding Collection" />

In 1948, the Museum of Non-Objective Art acquired Nierendorf's 730 objects, notably German expressionist paintings.<ref name=NierendorfEstate/><ref name=Calnek/> The Guggenheim still had 121 works from the Nierendorf collection in the 1990s,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> comprising a broad spectrum of expressionist and surrealist works, including paintings by Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka and Joan Miró.<ref name=Calnek/><ref name=cork/><ref name=NierendorfEstate>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1953, the Guggenheim acquired 28 pieces from Dreier's collection,Template:Efn including works by Alexander Archipenko, Constantin Brâncuși, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Juan Gris, El Lissitzky, Mondrian and Kurt Schwitters.<ref name=cork/>

The Thannhauser Collection, acquired in 1963, initially consisted of 73 works,<ref name="Spiegler 1963"/><ref name="nyt-1963-10-24" /> largely in the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and French modern styles,<ref name=Loebl284>Template:Harvnb</ref> including pieces by Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Vincent van Gogh and 32 works by Picasso.<ref name=cork/><ref>"Thannhauser, Justin K.: The Frick Collection", Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America. Retrieved March 13, 2012.</ref> Justin Thannhauser's widow Hilde donated additional pieces to the Thannhauser Collection in 1981 and 1991,Template:Sfn including Manet's Portrait of Countess Albazzi.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Rebay also bequeathed a portion of her personal collection to the foundation, including works by Kandinsky, Klee, Calder, Gleizes, Mondrian and Schwitters.<ref name="cork" /> The Guggenheim received the pieces in 1971, four years after her death,<ref name="About the Collection" /> because of a prolonged lawsuit.<ref name="nyt-1971-05-15" /> In 1990 the museum acquired the collection of Giovanna and Giuseppe Panza.<ref name="nyt-1990-02-16">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Fleeson 1990">Template:Cite news</ref> This includes examples of minimalist sculptures by Carl Andre, Dan Flavin and Donald Judd; minimalist paintings by Robert Mangold, Brice Marden and Robert Ryman; and an array of postminimal, conceptual and perceptual art by Robert Morris, Richard Serra, James Turrell, Lawrence Weiner and others, notably American examples of the 1960s and 1970s.<ref name="Glueck" /><ref name="Fleeson 1990" /> When the Panza Collection was acquired, some of the pieces had not been sculpted, existing only as sketches.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1992, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation gave 200 of Mapplethorpe's best photographs to the foundation,<ref name="nyt-1992-12-04" /><ref name="Wallach 1992"/> marking the museum's first major acquisition of 20th-century photography.Template:Sfn The works spanned his entire output, from his early collages, Polaroids, portraits of celebrities, self-portraits, male and female nudes, flowers and statues; it also featured mixed-media constructions and included his well-known 1998 Self-Portrait. The acquisition initiated the foundation's photography exhibition program.<ref name=cork/> In 2001, the foundation received a gift of the collection of the Bohen Foundation, which, for two decades, commissioned new works of art with an emphasis on film, video, photography and new media. It comprises around 275 works by 45 artists,<ref name="nyt-2001-12-21">Template:Cite news</ref> including Pierre Huyghe and Sophie Calle.<ref name=artdaily/> In 2022, the Guggenheim and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, jointly received 100 works from the D. Daskalopoulos Collection.<ref name="Chow 2022">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Other notable works

Under Sweeney's tenure, in the 1950s, the Guggenheim acquired Brâncuși's Adam and Eve (1921)<ref name="Calnek" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and works by other modernist sculptors such as Joseph Csaky, Jean Arp, Calder, Alberto Giacometti and David Smith.<ref name=Calnek/><ref name="NYT 1958 d716">Template:Cite news</ref> Sweeney reached beyond the 20th century to acquire Paul Cézanne's Man with Crossed Arms (Template:Circa)<ref name=Calnek/> and works by David Hayes, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.<ref>The Global Guggenheim, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Publications. Retrieved March 8, 2012.</ref> The museum also acquired works by such artists as Aristide Maillol, Jean Messagier, Fritz Hundertwasser and Eduardo Paolozzi, several Giacometti drawings and sculptures, a cubist drawing by Picasso and some Henri-Georges Adam engravings.<ref name="NYT 1958 d716" /> In the 1960s, among Messer's acquisitions were Francis Bacon's triptych Three Studies for a Crucifixion and David Smith's sculpture Cubi XXVII.Template:Sfn and pieces by Brâncuși, Calder, Giacometti, Klee, Léger, Joan Miró, Egon Schiele and František Kupka.Template:Sfn

Originally, the Guggenheim Museum's collection did not include any figurative art because of the museum's focus on "non-objective painting",<ref name="Russell e133">Template:Cite web</ref> but it later expanded to include a range of figurative pieces, such as a portrait of art critic Felix Feneon by Édouard Vuillard,<ref name="Russell e133"/><ref name=n162062245>Template:Cite news</ref> Three Studies for a Crucifixion and Miró's painting The Tilled Field.<ref name="McGill w240" /><ref name="n162061782">Template:Cite news</ref> Others include Picasso's Le Moulin de la Galette,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Mandolin and Guitar, Woman With Yellow Hair and Woman Ironing;<ref name="n1620673772"/> Julian Schnabel's The Student of Prague;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Roy Lichtenstein's Grrrrrrrrrrr!!<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Kandinsky's Study for Composition II and Blue Mountain.<ref name="n1620673772">Template:Cite news</ref>

Selected works in the collection

• Paul Cézanne, Template:Circa, Homme aux bras croisés (Man With Crossed Arms), oil on canvas, 92 × 72.7 cm
  Paul Cézanne, Template:Circa, Homme aux bras croisés (Man With Crossed Arms), oil on canvas, 92 × 72.7 cm
• Georges Braque, 1909, Violin and Palette (Violon et palette, Dans l'atelier), oil on canvas, 91.7 × 42.8 cm
  Georges Braque, 1909, Violin and Palette (Violon et palette, Dans l'atelier), oil on canvas, 91.7 × 42.8 cm
• Wassily Kandinsky, 1910, Landscape with Factory Chimney, oil on canvas, 66.2 × 82 cm
  Wassily Kandinsky, 1910, Landscape with Factory Chimney, oil on canvas, 66.2 × 82 cm
• Franz Marc, 1911, The Yellow Cow, oil on canvas, 140.5 × 189.2 cm
  Franz Marc, 1911, The Yellow Cow, oil on canvas, 140.5 × 189.2 cm
• Juan Gris, 1911, Maisons à Paris (Houses in Paris), 1911, oil on canvas, 52.4 × 34.2 cm
  Juan Gris, 1911, Maisons à Paris (Houses in Paris), 1911, oil on canvas, 52.4 × 34.2 cm
• Fernand Léger, 1911–12, Les Fumeurs (The Smokers), oil on canvas, 129.2 × 96.5 cm
  Fernand Léger, 1911–12, Les Fumeurs (The Smokers), oil on canvas, 129.2 × 96.5 cm
• Jean Metzinger, 1912, Femme à l'Éventail (Woman with a Fan), oil on canvas, 90.7 × 64.2 cm
  Jean Metzinger, 1912, Femme à l'Éventail (Woman with a Fan), oil on canvas, 90.7 × 64.2 cm
• Fernand Léger, 1912–13, Nude Model in the Studio (Le modèle nu dans l'atelier), oil on burlap, 128.6 × 95.9 cm
  Fernand Léger, 1912–13, Nude Model in the Studio (Le modèle nu dans l'atelier), oil on burlap, 128.6 × 95.9 cm
• Alexander Archipenko, 1913, Pierrot-carrousel, painted plaster, 61 × 48.6 × 34 cm
  Alexander Archipenko, 1913, Pierrot-carrousel, painted plaster, 61 × 48.6 × 34 cm
• Marc Chagall, 1913, Paris par la fenêtre (Paris Through the Window), oil on canvas, 136 × 141.9 cm
  Marc Chagall, 1913, Paris par la fenêtre (Paris Through the Window), oil on canvas, 136 × 141.9 cm
• Raymond Duchamp-Villon, 1914 (cast Template:Circa), Le cheval (The Horse), bronze, 43.6 × 41 cm
  Raymond Duchamp-Villon, 1914 (cast Template:Circa), Le cheval (The Horse), bronze, 43.6 × 41 cm
• Albert Gleizes, 1914–15, Portrait of an Army Doctor ('Portrait d'un médecin militaire), oil on canvas, 119.8 × 95.1 cm
  Albert Gleizes, 1914–15, Portrait of an Army Doctor ('Portrait d'un médecin militaire), oil on canvas, 119.8 × 95.1 cm
• Albert Gleizes, 1915, Brooklyn Bridge (Pont de Brooklyn), oil and gouache on canvas, 102 × 102 cm cm
  Albert Gleizes, 1915, Brooklyn Bridge (Pont de Brooklyn), oil and gouache on canvas, 102 × 102 cm cm
• Juan Gris, 1917, Compotier et nappe à carreaux (Fruit Dish on a Checkered Tablecloth), oil on wood panel, 80.6 × 53.9 cm
  Juan Gris, 1917, Compotier et nappe à carreaux (Fruit Dish on a Checkered Tablecloth), oil on wood panel, 80.6 × 53.9 cm
• Amedeo Modigliani, 1917, Nude (Nu), oil on canvas, 73 × 116.7 cm
  Amedeo Modigliani, 1917, Nude (Nu), oil on canvas, 73 × 116.7 cm
• Theo van Doesburg, 1918, Composition XI, oil on canvas, 57 × 101 cm
  Theo van Doesburg, 1918, Composition XI, oil on canvas, 57 × 101 cm
• Paul Klee, 1922, Red Balloon (Roter Ballon), oil on chalk-primed gauze, mounted on board, 31.7 × 31.1 cm
  Paul Klee, 1922, Red Balloon (Roter Ballon), oil on chalk-primed gauze, mounted on board, 31.7 × 31.1 cm
• Wassily Kandinsky, 1923, Composition 8, oil on canvas, 140 x 201 cm
  Wassily Kandinsky, 1923, Composition 8, oil on canvas, 140 x 201 cm

Restitution claims

In 2007, the heirs of Berlin banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy requested the restitution of the Picasso painting "Le Moulin de la Galette" (1900), which they claimed he had sold under duress by the Nazis.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The museum and the heirs settled the lawsuit in 2009.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The presiding judge, Jed Rakoff, criticized the secrecy of the accord.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2018, the museum returned the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painting Artillerymen (1915) to the heirs of Alfred Flechtheim, who had owned the painting before it fell into the hands of a Nazi collector in 1938.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2023, the heirs of Karl and Rosie Adler sued the Guggenheim to claim the restitution of a Picasso painting, Woman Ironing (La repasseuse) (1904), which the Adlers sold to Justin Thannhauser in 1938, allegedly for a fraction of its value, to escape the Holocaust. They alleged that Thannhauser knowingly purchased the painting, and art from other Jews on the run, profiting unfairly from their distress.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The museum says they contacted the Adler family before acquiring the painting as a part of Thannhauser's bequest of his art collection in 1976, and at that time Karl Adler did not object.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Edelson, Daniel. "A Jewish family sues the Guggenheim for a Picasso claimed sold under duress during Nazi rule", YNet, January 31, 2023</ref>

The Guggenheim lists 289 artworks on the Nazi Era Provenance Internet Portal (NEPIP) but does not publish provenance for its collection.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Governance and staff

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation operates and owns the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.<ref name=Foundation>Template:Cite web</ref> The foundation's art and museum committee is responsible for proposing acquisitions and deaccessions from the foundation's collection, while the foundation's board of trustees determines whether to enact the art and museum committee's proposals.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> J. Tomilson Hill has served as the board's chair since 2021,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> while Marcy Withington has been the foundation's chief financial officer since 2018.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The museum employed 315 full-time and part-time staff members Template:As of.<ref name=nyt-2020-04-10>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Reception and commentary

Contemporary views

Even before the building opened, the design polarized architecture critics<ref name=time/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and was controversial among the public.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Pfeiffer35>Template:Harvnb</ref> Some critics believed the building would overshadow the museum's artworks.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Emily Genauer of the New York Herald Tribune said the building had been likened to "a giant corkscrew, a washing machine and a marshmallow",<ref name="Genauer 1959">Template:Cite news</ref> while Solomon's niece Peggy Guggenheim believed it resembled "a huge garage".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Members of the public felt that the building contrasted with the character of Fifth Avenue.<ref name=Pfeiffer35/> Other critics, and many artists, worried that it would be difficult to properly hang paintings in the shallow, windowless, concave exhibition niches around the main gallery.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name="nyt-1959-04-10" /><ref name=time/> Prior to the opening of the museum, 21 artists signed a letter protesting the display of their work in such a space.<ref name=Stern815/><ref name="nyt-1956-12-12">Template:Cite news</ref> Phyllis Mark of the New Leader commented that the walls and ceilings would "disorient the viewer" and noted that the museum could only display five percent of its collection in the new building.<ref name="Mark 1959"/>

Art critics reviewed the structure especially harshly.<ref name=NPS39>Template:Harvnb</ref> John Canaday of The New York Times wrote that the design would be worthy of merit if it were "stripped of its pictures",<ref name="nyt-1959-10-21">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> while Hilton Kramer of Arts Magazine opined that the structure was "what is probably [Wright's] most useless edifice".<ref name=NPS40>Template:Harvnb</ref> Architectural critic Lewis Mumford summed up the opprobrium:

Wright has allotted the paintings and sculptures on view only as much space as would not infringe upon his abstract composition. ... [He] created a shell whose form has no relation to its function and offered no possibility of future departure from his rigid preconceptions. [The ramp] has, for a museum, a low ceiling – nine feet eight inches [295 cm] so only a picture well within the vertical boundaries thus created can be shown. The wall ... slanted outward, following the outward slant of the exterior wall, and paintings were not supposed to be hung vertically or shown in their true plane but were to be tilted back against it. ... Nor [can a visitor] escape the light shining in his eyes from the narrow slots in the wall.<ref name=Mumford1959>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

During his lifetime, Wright dismissed criticism of the structure, saying: "For the first time, art will be seen through an open window and, of all places, in New York".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He also felt that his design complemented Central Park, particularly with the shrubbery around the new building, which formed "a little park with a building in it".<ref name=Stern815/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Wright believed that the building would be well suited to avant-garde art, "which purported to represent space and form in a new, fully integrated manner".<ref name=McCarter318/>

The building also received critical acclaim. In a 1958 survey of the "Seven Wonders of American Architecture", five hundred architects ranked the Guggenheim as the 18th-best structure of more than 100 selected buildings.<ref name="Stern (1995) pp. 815–816">Template:Harvnb</ref> When the building opened, modernist architects such as Philip Johnson and Edward Durell Stone praised Wright's design,<ref name="nyt-1959-10-22-1">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=NPS38>Template:Harvnb</ref> and Genauer regarded it as "the most beautiful building in America".<ref name="Genauer 1959" /><ref name=NPS38/> This sentiment was shared even by commentators who questioned the building's functionality, including Robert M. Coates of The New Yorker, who wrote: "My question is not 'Is it art?' (I believe it is) but 'How well will it house art?'".<ref name=NPS38/><ref name=AF1959Dec>Template:Cite magazine</ref> A writer for the New York Daily Mirror said the Guggenheim "should be put in a museum to show how mad the twentieth century is."<ref name=AF1959Dec/> Directors of other major New York City museums also praised the building, though some of them were skeptical of whether the structure could function well as a museum.<ref name=NPS39/><ref name="nyt-1959-10-22-1" />

Impact and retrospective commentary

In later years, the building became widely praised.<ref>"The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum", The Art Story Foundation. Retrieved March 21, 2012.</ref>Template:Sfn Marcus Whiffen and Frederick Koeper wrote: "The dynamic interior of the Guggenheim is, for some, too competitive for the display of art, but no one disputes that it is one of the memorable spaces in all of architecture."<ref name=NPS42>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Paul Goldberger said in 2009: "I think the legacy of this building is in the message that architecture does not have to lie down and play dead in front of art."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to Herbert Muschamp, the Guggenheim was "one of New York's most distinguished landmarks", as well as Wright's best-known design.<ref name=NPS44>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=Muschamp1985>Template:Cite book</ref> The American Institute of Architects gave a Twenty-five Year Award to the Guggenheim in 1986, describing the museum's building as "an architectural landmark and a monument to Wright's unique vision".<ref name=NYCL12/><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

2 cent postage stamp featuring a black and white illustration with bust of Wright in the foreground and the museum in the background.

2 cent U.S. postage stamp honoring Wright, with the Guggenheim in the background (1966)

Several writers described the Guggenheim as representing Wright's tendency toward organic architecture.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> According to William J. R. Curtis, the building was "the apotheosis of Wright's organic philosophy".<ref name=NPS42/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Peter Blake commented that the Guggenheim was Wright's "only completed work of uncompromising plasticity and continuity",<ref name=NPS43>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name=Blake1996>Template:Cite book</ref> a claim with which Wright's biographer Robert C. Twombly agreed.<ref name=NPS43/><ref name=Twombly1991>Template:Cite book</ref> Critics came to regard the Guggenheim as the best work of Wright's later career,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> as well as a culmination of the helical shapes that Wright had used in his designs since 1925.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Spiro Kostof called the museum "a gift of pure architecture",<ref name=NPS43/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Edgar Kaufmann Jr. said the building was "one of the irrefutably grand achievements of modern architecture".<ref name=NPS43/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The museum building inspired other architects' designs.<ref name=Storrer401/><ref name=NYCL12/> Several similar buildings were developed in the 1960s, although they generally used less concrete than the Guggenheim did.<ref name=NYCL12/> Deborah Solomon of The New York Times Magazine wrote in 2002 that the Guggenheim inspired the phenomenon of "the museum that is just walls", wherein museums competed for the best-designed buildings.<ref name="nyt-2002-06-30">Template:Cite news</ref> The building was also depicted in a two-cent postage stamp issued in Wright's honor in 1966.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> The American Institute of Architects' 2007 survey List of America's Favorite Architecture ranked the Guggenheim Museum among the top 150 buildings in the United States.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="nyt-2007-05-27">Template:Cite news</ref>

Attendance

When the building opened, it was popular with the general public.<ref name="Bookbinder 1960">Template:Cite news</ref> A 1960 Gallup poll found that 38 percent of visitors came for the building itself, while an additional 43 percent wanted to see both the building and the art.<ref name="Bookbinder 1960"/><ref name=Stern820>Template:Harvnb</ref> The Guggenheim did not keep precise attendance records until 1992.<ref name=Barron2017>Template:Cite web</ref> Before its 1990s renovation, it had an estimated 600,000 annual visitors.<ref name="nyt-1992-06-21">Template:Cite news</ref> This increased to between 900,000 and 1 million by the early 2000s.<ref name="nyt-2004-06-10" /> It had 960,000 annual visitors before the September 11 attacks, but attendance decreased after the attacks; it recovered several years later.<ref name="Wilson 2006"/> In 2013, nearly 1.2 million people visited the museum, and its James Turrell exhibition was the most popular in New York City in daily attendance.<ref name=attendance2013>"Top 100 Art Museum Attendance", The Art Newspaper, 2014, pp. 11 and 15, accessed July 8, 2014.</ref> Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guggenheim had only 154,000 visitors in 2020, an 88 percent decrease from the preceding year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Template:As of, the museum had 861,000 visitors, compared with 1.2 million in 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).<ref name=artnews2023/><ref name="The New York Times 2024 x956">Template:Cite web</ref>

According to museum officials, surveys over the years have indicated that most visitors came because of the building's architecture rather than its artwork.<ref name="nyt-2004-06-10" /> In 2001, The New York Times reported that nearly 70 percent were tourists and that half were foreigners.<ref name="nyt-2001-11-20" /> In 2010, the Times reported that 55–65 percent of visitors were from the New York metropolitan area.<ref name=Guggenheim20100125>Template:Cite web</ref> According to a 2018 study, 73 percent of the museum's visitors were white and 8 percent were black.<ref name=Holmes2020/>

In 2009, a Frank Lloyd Wright retrospective attracted 372,000 visitors in three months, becoming the museum's single most popular exhibit.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This record was broken the next year by a Kandinsky exhibit.<ref name=Barron2017/><ref name=Guggenheim20100125/> Template:As of, the most popular exhibition in the museum's history was a 2019 exhibition of Hilma af Klint paintings,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which attracted over 600,000 visitors in six months.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• List of Frank Lloyd Wright works
• List of Guggenheim Museums
• List of most-visited museums in the United States
• List of National Historic Landmarks in New York City
• List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan from 59th to 110th Streets
• List of World Heritage Sites in the United States
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Manhattan from 59th to 110th Streets

References

Sources

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External links

• Template:Official website
• Google Cultural Institute page