NEW YORK.- The New York Times reported that expansion plans of the Museum of Modern Art have grown in expenses. The minutes of the last museum board meeting say that there have been $31 million worth of changes to the original plans and adding this to unbudgeted expenses, it totals $52 million. The project is on schedule, though. The director of the museum Glenn D. Lowry, said: "I’m confident we’ll reach our goal." The total cost of the expansion will now be $858 million from the original plan of $806 million. The expansion is scheduled to open to the public in 18 months and around $200 million still need to be raised to complete the project. The higher cost comes because of three things, basically. First, construction insurance cost has tripled after 9/11. Second, the museum has acquired land at its new building and the temporary space in Long Island City, Queens. And third, there have been design changes.
Lowry commented, "That figure ($858 million) includes everything from the purchase of land in New York and land in Queens to the museum’s endowment, the cost of construction, funds to operate an off-site theater while ours is under construction and funds to operate the Queens exhibition space. On an $800 million project, $52 million is less than 7 percent. Yes it’s a lot of money but not in the context of the project’s scale. About half are changes in the scope of the project…When we started the project we had hoped to be able to completely gut and renovate the interior of the Johnson and Goodwin and Stone buildings and put in all new systems. But post 9/11 we modified the plan, altering the ground, second and third floors and it was then we decided not to put in a new core but retain the existing elevator and ventilating shafts."
The chairman of the board of the museum, Ronald S. Lauder, said: "I wanted to take the 1939 building and bring it back. That meant replacing the translucent stone, the entrance foyer and redoing the original Philip Johnson boardroom. This way there will be the Taniguchi building, and there will be the old Modern, so that besides seeing the best of modern art, visitors can see the best of architecture. I’ve been looking at pictures of the Modern taken in the 1940’s because it’s important that we capture the same spirit. It’s part of our grounding, our heritage."