Redrawing the Plans; Architect Renzo Piano goes with the Whitney's flow.(Interview)

Byline: Cathleen McGuigan

While museums around the United States have been opening glamorous additions by star architects, the Whitney Museum of American Art can't seem to get its act together. Since 1985, it has shelved two high-profile schemes--one by Michael Graves and one by Rem Koolhaas--to expand its Marcel Breuer-designed museum on Manhattan's Upper East Side. So it was a little shocking when word leaked out that the museum may well back out of a third plan--this one by Renzo Piano, whose scheme called for a quietly elegant nine-story tower to join the brooding granite Breuer building via glass bridges.

A Whitney spokeswoman confirms the museum is now looking into constructing a satellite building in Manhattan's ultracool downtown meatpacking district rather than expanding on its current tight site. This time the Whitney isn't dumping its architect but inviting him to create the design for a new site. NEWSWEEK's architecture critic Cathleen McGuigan spoke with Piano.

NEWSWEEK: How did you find out the Whitney may not build your current design?

RENZO PIANO: In September, I was asked, how do you feel about going somewhere else? So then I went to the possible new site--and this is a beautiful piece of land, down by the meat market, a big open space. I like that ...