Art Museums Undergo Rapid Expansion

As art museums around the world build expensive new facilities by big-name architects, their success varies in attracting visitors and reaping the benefits of their investment, reports The New York Sun.

After the Guggenheim’s branch in Bilbao, Spain — designed by Frank Gehry — earned international renown, art museums across the United States, as well as in France, China, and Abu Dhabi, have experienced a boom in construction. Two dozen art museums in the United States have completed major additions in the past 10 years, and another dozen, reports the newspaper, are currently building new wings. Reasons vary: to attract visitors or donors, revitalize a city, or create cultural assets in a cash-rich region.

Internationally, the surge in museum-building can been seen in Abu Dhabi, where new outposts of the Louvre and the Guggenheim — and possibly the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts — are in the works. In China, at least four new museums are sprouting up.

Despite the optimism manifested in museum expansions, the tens of millions of dollars spent do not always pay off, says the newspaper. The Denver Art Museum, after building a costly new addition, was forced to cut staff members when attendance turned out to be much lower than expected. The Milwaukee Art Museum went $25-million into debt in the first few years after its expansion, reports the Sun.