New York City’s Concrete Art House on Madison
I remember walking up Madison Avenue. A little Italian girl, just over a meter tall with my bob cut of flimsy, dark, straight hair. I was probably wearing flowered jeans and a cerulean top with a purple ant from ‘A Bug’s Life’ on the front. I held on safely to my mother’s hand as we strolled up and down Manhattan’s streets. We loved traveling as a family — mum, dad, brother and me — and because of my dad’s job as an artist, we always visited as many of a city’s museums as we could. We often came to New York; my parents had a particular affinity for the city. That’s why, on that day when I was 5 years old, I recognized the building we stopped at on Madison at 75th street. As we came to a halt the building on the corner stood, imposing, above me. It wasn’t so much the stature of this building that impressed me, rather its apparently unstable assembly. The inverted stack of cement blocks stood over my head in what I felt was a precarious manner; it alarmed me but at the same, it drew me in (or maybe my mother’s hand dragging me behind her was what drew me in).
Detail of the Breuer Building’s facade on March 11, 2020.
The Breuer Building was built in 1966, as a home for the Whitney Museum of American Art. This austere building was constructed by Marcel Breuer, Hungarian modernist architect, mainly recognized for the iconic chairs he designed at the German Bauhaus art school — the Wassily and Cesca chairs. At the time of its completion, Breuer’s brutalist construction in the middle of Manhattan’s Upper East Side was accompanied by criticisms. “They [New Yorkers] considered it to be too strong a ‘modernist statement’ in a neighborhood of traditional limestone, brownstone, and post-war apartment buildings,” writes Albena Yaneva in her book ‘The Making of a Building.’
Detail of the Breuer Building’s facade on March 11, 2020.
Understanding what specifically appealed to me about this building as a child is hard to say. Certainly, going back home to Italy, it was the privilege of having seen something that not many had, having the opportunity to have traveled and learned. It was the feeling of wonderment I felt when entering, reverence as if walking into a sanctuary filled with artwork, whose meaning and history only my father could explain to me. I always felt like I was one of the few who knew what the Whitney was — I was in on New York City’s hidden gems and secrets. Needless to say, growing up I soon realized that wasn’t really the case. When at 25 I moved to New York I was very aware of the significance of this museum for the city and the art world. Nonetheless, I found out the Whitney Museum had actually left the building. After around 50 years in its textured concrete home, the Whitney abandoned the building to settle into its new home, the crystal palace designed by Renzo Piano in the Meat Packing District. The Breuer, up for grabs, was occupied by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a modern and contemporary art wing to its museum. This year, the Met will be leaving the premises to make space for the Frick Collection, as that museum looks for a temporary home to settle in during the renovations on its current building. No matter how fond I felt about the building, this sentiment didn’t brush on those who inhabit it. The Breuer’s “dark” looks seem to continue to push its occupants away, not finding someone to truly embrace its walls as their permanent home.
The Breuer Building on March 11, 2020.
At 25, 20 years after my first memories of the building, I decided to go back. On that ominous cloudy day, as the COVID-19 virus spread its reach to New York City, I could feel nostalgia bubble up as I walked towards the Breuer building. As I turned the corner on 75th there it was, looking as it always had: dark, daunting and immobile. However, as I walked up to it, I knew something was different about it, maybe the fact that I knew I wouldn’t see the familiar sculptures by Alexander Calder inside, or the fact that I was alone that day while my family was home in Italy during a nation-wide lockdown. Or more simply it could have been that I felt very different — having traveled the world from Los Angeles to Tokyo, the somber building didn’t seem as striking as it was in my memories. Nonetheless, the Breuer kept its station, a trustworthy custodian for the masterpieces that have rested in its halls, a sanctuary for some of New York City’s major art collections.
Inside the Breuer Building’s lobby on March 11, 2020.
Walking in, the golden-yellow lights, borrowed from a 60s sci-fi movie, greeted me warmly. The concrete welcome desk, black and heavy, had two people selling tickets at opposite sides, mirroring the feeling of solitude that was pervading me. I got my Metropolitan Museum sticker ticket and fixed it on my jacket, then knowingly turned left and headed for the elevators — as always, I favored the larger central elevator. The elevator reached the fourth floor and I found myself in an exhibit on Gerhard Richter, a German contemporary artist famous for his abstract work.
Gerard Richter exhibit at the Met Breuer on March 11, 2020.
I pushed my way through the heavy, black metal doors that link floors to the stairwell so that I could descend to the next section of the exhibit. As they forcefully clanged shut behind me, I found myself smiling to myself as I again fell back into fantasizing about my childhood memories. Enclosed in that space on my own I found my own personal corner and I could picture a tinier, spirited version of myself jumping around those steps as my parents attempted to restrain my exploding enthusiasm. Unaware of life’s challenges and spoiled by my parents’ generosity I was living in simpler times, my thoughts absorbed by the question of how to enjoy myself as much as I could. This made me realize how far I am from that version of myself, how everything I do today requires meticulous planning and isn’t often just enjoyment for the sake of it.
Gerard Richter exhibit at the Met Breuer on March 11, 2020.
I took my time savoring those steps, lined by the warmer wood of the banister and lit by an occasional light in a corner. Looking up and down the center it appeared as though the building went on endlessly in both directions — even though the stubby stature would make you think otherwise. As I walked down, I noticed a tiny construction in the corner of the stairs — the model of a small, unfinished, village — and I later discovered artist Charles Simonds was commissioned by the Whitney to build three works for his Dwellings series of constructions.
I made my way down, floor by floor, room by room; treasuring tiny details and the joy that remembering these gave me. Opening the stairwell’s door into the museum’s lobby I once again found myself illuminated by the yellowish hue of the lamps, my loneliness replaced by a feeling of richness and gratitude from seeing a familiar place and for the beautiful memories I carry along with me everywhere I go.
