The museum world gets bigger this week, with the opening next Saturday of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Wing, a 264,000 sq. ft. structure set to hold the museum’s 20th and 21st Century collections, and the opening this past Sunday of a rooftop sculpture garden at
the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Sitting on top of an parking garage, it includes an indoor glass pavilion gallery and two outdoor spaces. Among the works on view are Henry Moore’s Large Torso Arch (right). And I can just imagine the dramatic cityscape view from this fifth-floor space.
The Art Institute’s Modern wing includes the Bluhm Family Terrace, with 3,400 sq. ft. of outdoor exhibition space, though I doubt the view can compare.
I’m surprised that, during the past decade of museum expansions, there haven’t been more rooftop galleries.
Anyone who’s seen the current Roxy Paine show (below) on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum 
knows how wonderful it is to see sculpture against the backdrop of the city and the sky.
For a while, sculpture gardens on the ground were very popular, and many museums built them. But on their roofs? Not so much. The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art has one; LACMA has talked of creating one; and the proposed design for a new Aspen Art Museum includes one (but last week it lost a ballot measure that would have authorized the city council to sell the museum the land it needs for the building.) The Tampa Museum of Art at first put one in the design for its new building, but appears to have scaled it back for cost reasons — even as board members recognized that a rooftop garden could be a money-spinner, according to Tampa Bay online. There may be others here and there.
I think U.S. museums have, on the whole, overexpanded. But this is one area where I am puzzled by the lack of growth. True, maintenance costs may be high; there may be concerns about seasonality. Maybe the sculpture collections are filling up the gardens, with little left over. But there’s little doubt in my mind that rooftop sculpture gardens would help attract more visitors.
Photo Credit: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (top); Metropolitan Museum of Art (bottom).