Cover Story : Exercises in Thinking Really Big : Designs by famous architects and huge fund-raising drives go hand in hand with the building boom.

Name an American city--anyplace with a population of 100,000 or more. Chances are that city’s either building or planning a new art museum, or expanding and renovating an existing one. If not, it probably opened a new museum or added a wing to its old facility within the last few years. From New York to San Diego, and Milwaukee to Houston--not forgetting Cincinnati; Davenport, Iowa; and Kansas City, Mo.--the country seems to have been seized by an urge to pour public and private resources into art palaces. Currently, about $2 billion is being spent on American art museums’ expansion and renovation projects.

This might appear to be an astonishing development. Only about five years ago, when museum directors and curators were grappling with the possible dangers of reproducing their collections on CD-ROMs and other digital products, it was thought that museums might soon become obsolete. Who knew whether old-fashioned museum visitors would turn into stay-at-home mouse potatoes who would get their fill of Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Rauschenberg on their personal computers?

But now those fears seem rather quaint. Whether simply responding to the needs of growing audiences and collections or boldly envisioning new buildings as cultural centerpieces of urban revitalization schemes, museum boards of directors are increasingly commissioning internationally renowned architects to design adventurous projects and launching ambitious capital campaigns to fund them. Encouraged by the robust economy and inspired, in part, by the international excitement surrounding the recent openings of architect Frank Gehry’s masterpiece, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Richard Meier-designed Getty Center in Los Angeles, big physical changes are taking place in dozens of American art museums.

Leading the pack in terms of budget and visibility, the Museum of Modern Art in New York is raising $650 million to dramatically expand its facility and increase the museum’s endowment. The architect, Tokyo-based Yoshio Taniguchi, is working on a plan that includes adding an eight-story building, taking over space formerly occupied by the Dorset Hotel and moving the museum’s main entrance from 53rd Street to 54th Street. The project is scheduled to open in 2004, the museum’s 75th anniversary.

Texas museum leaders are also thinking expansively, though not quite as expensively as their colleagues at MOMA. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is winding up a $120-million capital campaign for a building designed by Spanish architect Rafael Moneo that will more than double the museum’s exhibition space; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth has commissioned Japanese architect Tadao Ando to design a $70-million building on land donated by philanthropist Anne W. Marion; the University of Texas at Austin is raising $42 million for the new Jack S. Blanton Museum, to be designed by the Swiss firm of Herzog and De Meuron.

In Southern California, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena is planning to celebrate the completion of its $5-million refurbishment in early October, and the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Villa in Malibu is expected to reopen in 2002 after a $150-million renovation of the building and grounds. Among other local projects, the Long Beach Museum of Art has broken ground for a $5.6-million addition to its 1912 wood-and-brick seaside house, and San Diego’s Museum of Photographic Arts is undergoing a $6-million renovation and expansion that will quadruple its space in Balboa Park.

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This is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, there has been so much growth in American art museums during the last several decades that some veteran observers say the current boom is not a phenomenon at all.

“I think it’s pretty much business as it has been for the last 30, 40, 50 years,” said Stephen Weil, emeritus senior scholar at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Museum Studies. “Art museum collections almost invariably expand, so there’s a fairly constant impulse to find more and more space. And as each generation of leadership comes into a museum, one of the ways it proves itself is by building something. As you have boards turn over and the generations pass, people want to do something memorable.”

Weil has a point. Six hundred museums--including an unspecified number of art museums--have been built in the United States since 1970, according to a recent article in Museum News, a magazine published by the American Assn. of Museums. And Los Angeles has had its share of the action; during the last three years alone, four major institutions have opened here--the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, the Skirball Cultural Center and Museum, the Japanese American National Museum and the California Science Center.

But even if the current rash of construction and renovation is merely business as usual, business is booming. And there’s no sign of a slowdown. The American Assn. of Museums estimates that 150 museums will be constructed or expanded during the next couple of years, at a cost of some $4.3 billion. No one knows how many of those projects are art museums, but educated guesses put the figure at 50 or 60.

In San Francisco alone, four major projects are on the drawing boards. The M.H. de Young Memorial Museum recently unveiled Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron’s design to replace the earthquake-damaged building in Golden Gate Park. The Asian Art Museum is preparing to move from the park to the Old Main Library in the civic center, but only after a major renovation of the historic building. The Mexican Museum is expected to break ground next spring in the Yerba Buena district for a building designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legoretta. Finally, the Jewish Museum will unveil American architect Daniel Libeskind’s design for its new Yerba Buena building early next year.

Among other major projects across the country, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, the Davenport Museum of Art in Iowa and the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., are planning new buildings. The Milwaukee Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Portland Art Museum in Oregon and the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City are building grand additions. Also, historic structures are being redesigned and upgraded. The Old Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C., which houses the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American Art and National Portrait Gallery, will close in early January for a $60-million, three-year renovation.

Edward H. Able, president and chief executive of the American Assn. of Museums, attributes the growth to a rise in museum attendance and a healthy economy, among other factors. The association estimates that 865 million people visited American museums in 1998--up from about 600 million annual visits in the early 1990s--and Able expects the figure to hit 1 billion within the next decade. Visits to art museums--not counting children and school groups--currently number about 225 million a year, according to the National Endowment for the Arts.

As more and more people go to museums, bigger buildings and more services are required, Able said. “There was a lull in the early 1990s, because of the economic downturn, but now there’s lots of activity. Contributions from both public and private sources have been very generous, so we have resources to do what we couldn’t do previously,” he said.

And many institutions have seized the moment to carry out dreams, outlined in glossy press packets. The announcement of Skidmore College’s Tang Teaching Museum and Gallery describes the planned facility, designed by architect Antoine Predock of Albuquerque, as “a dynamic interdisciplinary arts center” that will serve as a national model.

The Milwaukee Art Museum’s flamboyant new wing--which is situated on the edge of Lake Michigan and incorporates maritime elements--will not only increase exhibition and program space, it will forge “a vital link” with the surrounding community by adding a pedestrian bridge between the museum and the city’s main street. In Davenport, plans call for moving the local art museum from “museum hill,” where it’s sometimes confused with other institutions, to a downtown location where it will gain space and a distinctive identity as part of an urban renaissance, said Midge Mason, the museum’s development director.

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Amid all these aspirations and activities, it can be difficult to see the big picture of America’s art museums within a historical context. But longtime observers cite several profound developments that have either contributed to the boom or evolved with it.

“I think we have a higher level of consciousness, among more people, that building museums is a positive expression of identity,” said Selma Holo, who directs USC’s art gallery and museum studies program. “In the past, museums popped up as the visionary ideas of a few people, but now it doesn’t take much to convince a broad spectrum of people that having a museum is almost an essential part of describing who we are.”

Institutions such as the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles--for which art is one major component--help to establish ethnic identity, while a city’s art museums are part of its civic identity, she said. Just as Paris has long been identified with the Louvre and Madrid with the Prado, American cities are increasingly known for their museums.

“In Los Angeles, we have our great tycoon museums--the Huntington, the Simon and the Getty--and they are points of pride,” Holo said. “Many people think that having the Getty in Los Angeles means that we are in the big time.”

As to how and why the public stature of American museums has risen, Holo speculated that an ongoing parade of blockbuster exhibitions, community outreach programs and press coverage all have played a part.

In addition, museums have become plum commissions for architects, who are likely to be recognized as artists themselves, she said. Their museum buildings--which sometimes outshine the art on display--can be major attractions.

As American art museums have become bigger and better attended, their staffs also have become more professional. Eighteen years ago, when Holo took charge of USC’s museum studies program, the field was not very respectable, but that situation has changed, she said.

Doran H. Ross, who directs the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History and works with the university’s rapidly growing museum studies program, agrees. “Traditionally in art history, you got your degree and became a teacher. But now museums are a logical alternative,” he said. At the same time, “the idea that just getting an art history degree qualifies you as a curator is disappearing. Having some general course work in museums is seen as part of the professionalization of the museum discipline.”

The growth and development of American art museums is a continuing process, but they seem to be flourishing at the moment--at least in terms of building programs. Still, there is cause for concern, according to the American Assn. of Museums’ Able.

“We are facing a tremendous challenge,” he said. “The public and media see museums as being in great shape. I see aging collections, aging facilities and the expense of expanding public services.

“As collections age, we need to put more and more money into conservation,” he said. And as buildings grow older, everything from security to environmental control systems need to be updated. When those steadily mounting costs are added to the demand for more public services, museum budgets can be stretched painfully thin.

“During the ‘70s and ‘80s, there was an explosion of facilities; lots of buildings were constructed, but no money was provided to operate them,” Able said. Indeed, a 1997 association survey revealed that fewer than 60% of American museums have endowments. That is changing, “but it’s a recent change,” he said.

Museums rarely run large deficits, but they need to prepare for economic downturns by diversifying their income bases, increasing revenue-generating activities and building endowments, he said. “I advise directors to no longer accept gifts for bricks and mortar without funds for endowment.”

And many museum directors who have weathered hard times are listening. Even as they commission high-priced architects, break ground for spectacular buildings and court wealthy donors, they are running mega-million-dollar campaigns, most of which include funds for endowments.

The 10 Priciest Projects in the U.S.

Museum of Modern Art, New York: $650-million expansion (including an undesignated amount for endowment) designed by Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi, to open in 2004.

Asian Art Museum, San Francisco: $160-million project designed by Italian architect Gae Aulenti to transform the Old Main Library into the museum’s new home, to open in fall 2002.

J. Paul Getty Museum’s Villa, Malibu: $150-million renovation of buildings and grounds designed by the Boston firm of Machado and Silvetti Associates, to open in 2002.

M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco: $135-million new building designed by the Swiss firm of Herzog and De Meuron, to open in 2005.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: $120-million expansion designed by Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, to open in March 2000.

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City: $80-million expansion designed by New York-based architect Steven Holl, to open in summer 2004.

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth: $70-million new building designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, to open in spring 2002.

Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.: $60-million renovation of the Old Patent Office Building, which houses the two museums, designed by the Washington firm of Hartman-Cox Architects, to open in 2003.

Milwaukee Art Museum: $50-million expansion designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, to open at the end of 2000.

Jack S. Blanton Museum at the University of Texas, Austin: $42-million building designed by the Swiss firm Herzog and De Meuron, to open in 2002.

Current Museum Projects in California

In addition to projects at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Villa in Malibu and M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco (see Page 9), six other significant ones are in California:

Mexican Museum, San Francisco: $29-million new building designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legoretta, to open in 2002.

Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego: $6-million expansion designed by San Diego-based architect David Raphael Singer, to open in spring 2000.

Long Beach Museum of Art: $5.6-million restoration and expansion designed by Los Angeles-based architect Frederick Fisher, to open in June 2000.

Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena: $5-million renovation designed by Los Angeles-based architect Frank Gehry, to be celebrated Oct. 3.

Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino: $3.5-million transformation of a 1911 carriage house into the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery designed by Los Angeles-based architects Levin and Associates, to open with “The Art of Bloomsbury” on March 4.

Jewish Museum, San Francisco: as-yet-unbudgeted new building designed by Berlin-based architect Daniel Libeskind, plans to be revealed in early 2000.