Issue #48, March 9, 2007

NEW MUSEUM WILL HAVE TO BE COMPLETED IN PHASES

By Christian McLean

In 1898 Samuel Parrish commissioned local architect Grosvenor Atterbury to build a museum to house his ever-growing collection of Renaissance art and reproductions of Ancient Greek and Roman works. It was named the Art Museum of Southampton, and was a privately-owned institution open to the public. In 1941, nine years after Parrish’s death, the building and the collection were given to the Village of Southampton and it was renamed The Parrish Art Museum.

Samuel Parrish’s Founding Collection (roughly 100 pieces) and the brick building on Jobs Lane remain the property of the Village of Southampton, but in the 1950s, the Parrish Art Museum was incorporated and the Permanent Collection was started. This collection is expansive, boasting the largest single collection of artwork by William Merritt Chase in the country, and also a great deal of acclaimed modern artists (Pollock, Lichtenstein, de Kooning, Flavin, and the likes) who frequented the East End.

The 17,000 square foot museum offers a limited amount for display, lecture, and offices, and the current gift shop is split in half, lining both sides of the entrance. It is impossible to hang the entire Permanent Collection or even a fraction of it at a single time. In July of 2006, after exhausting the idea of expanding the existing building by 50,000 square feet, the Parrish’s board announced that over $30 million had been raised, 14 acres in Water Mill had been purchased and that the renowned architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron had rendered the plans for a new 64,000 square foot Parrish Art Museum. Designed to look like adjoining artist studios in a pastoral, bucolic field, this new museum would offer ample room for the permanent collection, a top notch lecture auditorium, cafe, gift shop, and offices. The 14-acre site would also allow for exterior artwork, landscaping and expansion if needed (there was a 90,000 square foot building envelope). The museum was to become a cultural and artistic Mecca on the East End, drawing visitors from across Long Island.

Now the Parrish has announced that they must alter these plans and build the project in phases. The price of building materials and the state of the art technology required to care for the artwork properly has stifled the initial design. Key design principals, including an underground storage facility for the art, have been cut, while other plans have been altered.

Phase One is a 42,000 plus square foot main building, budgeted at roughly $55 million, which includes the landscaping of the surrounding acreage of the museum. Space eventually designated for gallery display will house offices and a gift shop in the new plan until the 20,000 square foot second phase is built.

While this is all quite unsettling, the Parrish’s board does not seem concerned, seeing this as an opportunity to rethink display areas and provide proper room and space for the older and newer works. The architects at Herzog & de Meuron, who designed the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, don’t seem to be too concerned about the two phase construction process either. Of course problems will arise. We are observing the transition of a museum designed to house one man’s private collection into a regional art museum with artists of international clout.

The Parrish is to be the East End’s answer to the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor. While the Nassau County Museum of Art has only existed since 1969, the sprawling 145-acre campus and Joan and Arnold Saltzman Fine Art Building (formally the mansion of Childs Frick of U.S. Steel lineage), draws over 225,000 visitors a year. The museum’s collection focuses on 19th, 20th and 21st century artists, many of whom the Parrish also houses. They offer educational programs to 20,000 school children and 125 senior groups annually.

Will the Parrish Art Museum ever have this volume of visitors? It has the potential. The Tate St Ives, built in the seaside community in Cornwall, Great Britain, was designed to handle 70,000 patrons a year, but since 2001, it has increased to an average of 240,000 visitors annually. Because of this, Tate St Ives has initiated Phase Two. They are grappling with five different plans to expand the museum or build an additional museum. The struggle for the Tate is that St Ives is a densely populated village and land is hard to come by.

Observing the plight of the Tate St Ives, we can see how The Parrish, at its new location, may actually benefit from a two-phase construction. Once the first phase is built, which was initially slated to be finished by 2009, the attendance of the museum may completely surpass what was estimated. If this is the case, they would be able to redesign the second phase (remember they have a 90,000 square foot building envelope) in order to meet the traffic, thus avoiding the helter-skelter race to find more space, which is what is occurring in St Ives.

While we speculate on the final outcome of the Parrish Art Museum’s new design the question must be asked, Where will they get the additional $25 million to finish Phase One by 2009? After all, it is only two years away. While fundraising and private donations are slowly filling the kitty, it is hard to comprehend that $25 million will be collected by simply passing the hat. Then again, it’s the Hamptons, a place where Richard Serra sculptures snake through front lawns and Pollocks are owned by deli clerks; in other words, a place where anything is possible.