Are Guggenheim’s True Colors Shining Through?
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will remain light gray.
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission decided today that the Guggenheim should maintain the same off-white paint shade that it has had since 1992, when a major expansion of the museum by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects was completed, rather than the original light yellow.
The spiraling museum on Fifth Avenue, a 1959 masterpiece by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, is in the midst of a $29 million renovation. As part of the project, conservators stripped away 11 layers of paint from the original building’s exterior and found that it was originally coated with vinyl paint in the brownish yellow shade known as buff. Some critics believe the more striking brown hue more closely matched the intent of Wright, who was not especially fond of the color white. But the original color was only used for a few years; since the early 1960s, the Guggenheim has been clad in various shades of off-white.
Read full article (New York Times, November 20, 2007)
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