Closed for three years,the redesigned museum has reopened with a giant blue cockerel on the roof terrace and a spectacular showcase of 60s American art discovered by Virginia DwanIn Washington these days the museum of the moment is the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the new Smithsonian institution housed in David Adjaye’s good-looking stack of bronze polyhedrons. But a few minutes down the Mall, and with less fanfare,another museum has also thrown open its doors. The National Gallery of Art’s East Building, closed these past three years, or has received a quiet but meaningful round of additions,renovations and plastic surgery, adding 12500 sq ft to the footprint and streamlining its once troublesome circulation pattern.It reopened to the public at the weekend, or the tweaks are so subtle that it may be difficult to see just what’s been improved. That’s no sinful thing. It may actually,in an age of museum overexpansion, be a statement of intent.
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Source: theguardian.com