State of the Art (Museums) : For every building project that has been derailed in New York and L.A., another one is rolling along in cities big and small

If the vitality of art museums is measured by expansion and proliferation, the 1980s were the best of times. Every medium-sized city and metropolis across the nation seemed to be building a palace of culture, adding to existing facilities or making plans to do so.

In those days, Southern California was in the forefront. While the J. Paul Getty Trust developed its vision of a vast cultural complex, to be built on a Brentwood hilltop, Greater Los Angeles gained several new showcases--the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Robert O. Anderson Building and the Pavilion for Japanese Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Virginia Steele Scott Gallery at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.

Meanwhile, the Laguna Art Museum renovated and expanded its old building, the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art (now the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego) announced a $10.5-million capital campaign, including a $7.3-million expansion plan by architect Robert Venturi; the Newport Harbor Art museum embarked on a $50-million building program for land donated by the Irvine Co., and the Craft and Folk Art Museum launched a $12-million capital campaign for a new building.

By the same measure, the 1990s appear to be a bust. As the nation struggles with a tenacious recession, many grand projects have been stalled or scrapped. And again Southern California seems to epitomize the trend. UCLA’s Fowler Museum of Cultural History opened last year (in its first permanent space, 29 years after it was founded) and the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana completed a $12-million face lift, but those are unusual signs of growth.

The once-booming L.A. County Museum of Art is reeling from budgetary cutbacks and staff losses, while officials contemplate the possibility of buying adjacent May Co. property--an enticing opportunity that unfortunately costs money. Apart from county-funded improvements to the park surrounding the museum, plans for growth and change are in a “generative stage,” LACMA Director Michael Shapiro said.

The Museum of Contemporary Art appears to have shrunk drastically because the Temporary Contemporary, a vast exhibition hall in Little Tokyo, is closed to facilitate construction of the nearby First Street Plaza project. As it turns out, the TC closed six to eight months too soon, and its opening date has been bumped from April to October, 1995. The development, which was scheduled to break ground in August but has been delayed, is expected to go to City Council for final approval within the next two months.

Among other discouraging developments on the local art scene, the Craft and Folk Art Museum couldn’t raise enough money to finance a plan to build a mixed-use tower, so it is implementing a more modest expansion on its Wilshire Boulevard property. The Newport Harbor Art Museum in 1990 fired architect Renzo Piano, citing escalating costs and problems with his design, and retained the New York-based Kohn Petersen Fox Associates, but new plans have not been revealed. Newport trustees on Jan. 23, 1992, formally agreed to postpone the project and called a halt to fund-raising.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, recently opened a $1.2-million satellite in downtown San Diego, but it is reconsidering its long-planned expansion at the La Jolla facility. Trustees are scheduled to meet in July to decide whether to go ahead with the building as planned or to scale back.

Additionally, the Southwest Museum, which desperately needs more space, continues to be embroiled in a controversy over whether to move, at an estimated cost of $32 million, undertake a $21.9-million expansion at its present site or scrape by with a $12.9-million rehabilitation. “We are assessing our ability to implement those options,” Director Tom Wilson said, noting that a decision will be based on fund-raising potential.

Meanwhile, in the Northeast, the picture is equally gloomy. The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, popularly known as Mass MOCA, appears to be gasping for life. The $45-million plan called for the transformation of 680,000 square feet of usable space in 28 old industrial buildings in North Adams, Mass. The project was envisioned as the world’s largest contemporary art museum, but Gov. William F. Weld froze $33 million in state funding in 1991 when he took office. Recently he agreed to release the funds if $12 million in private donations is raised by July 31. About $4.5 million has been secured so far.

Working on the project for the past five years has been “like a roller coaster ride,” Mass MOCA Director Joe Thompson said, and the economic climate continues to be daunting. “But I’m feeling more confident now. The fact that the project has lasted so long and continued to attract attention means it’s fundamentally a good idea. I think we can cajole it into being.” If so, the museum will open in phases, with the first portion consisting of about 200,000 or 250,000 square feet, he said.

In New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art has long since scrapped plans for a controversial addition by architect Michael Graves and closed one of its Manhattan satellites. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum last year reopened its Frank Lloyd Wright building with much fanfare, but the museum’s new outpost in SoHo still lacks a planned cafe and many finishing touches, including a steel bridge over the basement cafe, a stairway leading to the eatery and display cases for the bookstore and gift shop.

At opposite ends of the country--which is to say Los Angeles and New York-- caution is the watchword and retrenchment is the mode of operation. But is this the worst of times for American art museums?

Not according to John R. Lane, director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. A new home for the museum, designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta, is currently rising in Yerba Buena Gardens, a downtown redevelopment district. The $85-million project ($60 million for the building, $25 million for the endowment) is proceeding on schedule and on budget, Lane said.

Not according to Kevin Consey, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. The museum recently broke ground for a 125,000-square-foot building designed by Josef Paul Kleihues. About $44.5 million of the $55-million budget has been raised, and the museum is expected to open in the spring of 1996.

Not according to officials of the Dallas Museum of Art, where a $30-million, 140,000-square-foot expansion, designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes, is under way. About 80% of Dallas’ $55-million expansion campaign (including $25 million for an endowment) has been raised.

And not according to directors of many smaller museums in the vast, often forgotten terrain between the coastal art capitals. Indeed, for every building project that has been derailed in New York and Los Angeles, another one is rolling along in Phoenix, New Orleans, Minneapolis, Omaha or Birmingham, Ala.

The economy is certainly a factor in the nationwide picture of art museum growth.

“Don’t forget that (Dallas was) on the cutting edge of the recession,” said Susan Barnes, deputy director of the Dallas Museum of Art. By the late 1980s, when Dallas’ ambitious building project was hatched, things were looking up, she said.

Said Lane of the San Francisco project: “We were very fortunate that our campaign for large gifts occurred before the economic climate changed so drastically in California. But we would have gone ahead with the building in any case. Most of our board members are not dependent on the kinds of industries that have suffered so much.”

Board members alone contributed a whopping $65 million to the new San Francisco museum. Other major donors gave a total of $15 million to the project. The final phase of fund-raising is expected to bring in the last $5 million from smaller contributors.

Museum building projects do not always correspond to the economic climate. “There are usually specific reasons for construction projects,” said Harry S. Parker III, director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which include the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park and the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park. “In the case of the Legion of Honor, people wouldn’t have been so interested in giving money for seismic upgrading if we hadn’t recently gone through a major earthquake.”

The Legion of Honor closed in April for a $30-million rehabilitation. The project includes seismic strengthening of walls and ceilings, remodeling of the terrace level, improved handicap access and 10,000 square feet of new space for galleries and storage under the museum’s courtyard. A city bond issue provided $11.2 million of the funds, and trustees contributed most of the balance, Parker said.

Another capital campaign will be required for the Fine Arts Museums, however. A recently completed seismic report indicates that the De Young Museum needs a $22.5-million upgrade. “That’s only the tip of the iceberg,” Parker said. “The De Young will be three times as costly as the Legion project. Being in Golden Gate Park, the De Young has to remain very close to its present footprint, but we hope to expand underground.”

In the case of many other building projects, it’s a major donor who gets things going. Nancy Hamon, a longtime trustee at the Dallas Museum of Art, provided a $20-million lead gift for a new wing, which will house a Museum of the Americas (for the display of an important collection of pre-Columbian art, acquired with the financial help of Hamon and her husband, Jake), a 14,000-square-foot special exhibition gallery and a 32,000-square-foot Education Resource Center. The Nancy and Jake Hamon Building is the centerpiece of a plan to reorganize the museum into four parts: three “culture-focused” installations and one devoted to contemporary art.

Los Angeles-based collector Frederick R. Weisman also has been a major player in museum development. Last year, he gave $1.5 million to a new museum at Pepperdine University in Malibu, which now bears his name. Another Weisman museum, designed by architect Frank O. Gehry, is expected to open in November at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Weisman’s hometown. The museum was funded by a $3-million gift from Weisman and an equal amount from an unrestricted bequest. At his death, the museum will receive about $1 million of art from Weisman’s collection.

Weisman also has contributed to a $20-million renovation and expansion at the New Orleans Museum of Art. When the museum opens, on April 18, it will contain a series of Weisman galleries designated for contemporary art made by artists who live and work in Louisiana. “He has been a big help to the museum and to artists. We love him here,” museum press officer Virginia Weaver said of Weisman, who owns a home in New Orleans.

Foundations have been more apt to fund arts programs than museum construction projects. However, the Omaha-based Kiewit Foundation came up with $20 million for a $60-million joint expansion project of the Joslyn Art Museum and the Western Heritage Museum. About $25 million in additional private funds has been raised so far. The Joslyn, which will gain 50,000 square feet of space from the project, expects to break ground late this year and complete construction in 1995.

Given the dour state of the national economy, it is widely assumed that public money is no longer available for the arts. But several current projects got their impetus from government funds. The New Orleans Museum of Art, for example, launched a major expansion with a $5-million bond issue from the city in 1988, followed in 1991 by an $800,000 city bond issue and a gift of $1.3 million from the state. Similarly, a $20-million renovation and expansion at the Birmingham Museum of Art (expected to open in October) was sparked in 1989 by a $5-million city bond issue. An additional $1.5 million came in this year from another city bond issue, and Jefferson County contributed $1 million.

The City of Phoenix in 1988 passed a $1.05-billion bond issue, providing $200 million for “quality of life” projects. The Phoenix Art Museum received $20 million of that to renovate its 32-year-old building, construct 45,000 square feet of new gallery space, add a sculpture pavilion and performance area and take over part of the Phoenix Public Library building. The museum, the cornerstone of the city’s arts district, is expected to open in the spring of 1996.

The architectural team of Lescher and Mahoney/DLR Group in Phoenix has worked with the New York design firm Tod Williams-Billie Tsien and Associates to design a building that will coordinate with other components of a downtown revitalization program. “The new museum will integrate not only great art and design, but will also include the flexibility and scale needed to provide excellent museum programs for the entire community,” museum Director James K. Ballinger said. “This is a tremendous opportunity for the people of Phoenix and everyone living in Maricopa County.”

The enthusiasm and civic confidence that surround such projects are particularly striking when compared with the bunker mentality that pervades the art worlds in New York and Los Angeles. In those two art centers, creative planners are turning their attention to methods of outreach and collaboration that do not carry big price tags.

“We are re-evaluating the whole idea of expansion and looking at alternatives,” said Steven Schlough, press officer at the Whitney. “We are focusing on collaborations, such as the arrangement we have with the San Jose Museum, to find new ways to present the permanent collection to a larger public. We are also expanding programming and broadening the operations of our satellites in Manhattan and Stamford, Conn.”

The Brooklyn Museum, which in 1986 embarked on a $31-million expansion plan with architectsArata Isozaki and James Stewart Polshek, also has been sobered by the economic downturn. Hard hit by budget cuts from the City of New York--which have forced a reduction of public viewing hours and rotating gallery closures since 1990--the museum has struggled to complete the plan for an extensive renovation of its west wing.

“Because of the new fiscal reality, it has been necessary to open (the new west wing galleries) one floor at a time,” press officer Sally Williams said. Fifth-floor galleries are scheduled to open this week with a show of Leon Polk Smith’s work. The entire project is expected to be completed in November, when a new installation of the museum’s Egyptian collection is to be unveiled.

Like many other major art institutions, the Brooklyn Museum has no more expansion plans. “We’re just dealing with what we have,” Williams said. “It’s little short of a miracle that we have accomplished this much.”

Still, the urge to grow continues. In Chicago, Birmingham, New Orleans and New York, museum officials say that the increasing size of contemporary artworks and demands of art donors to have their gifts on display require more and more exhibition space, generally with higher ceilings and wider expanses of walls.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York, which completed a major expansion in 1984, is currently seeking a secondary exhibition space to accommodate its permanent collection and temporary shows. The museum had a $2.5-million deficit last year, but potential donors are still calling.