NEW YORK (AP) – Michelle Obama praised New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art for its outreach to the community during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the museum’s new downtown home Thursday and said she “fell in love” with the Renzo Piano-designed building.
“This is the most beautiful freight elevator I’ve ever ridden on,” the first lady said after what she described as a brief tour. “Just about every space in this museum is magnificent.”
The $422-million building at the southern terminus of the High Line elevated park in Manhattan’s meatpacking district opens to the public on Friday. The Whitney’s old building on the Upper East Side will house the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s contemporary collection.
“Mamma mia, what a joy,” said Piano, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect whose buildings include the headquarters of The New York Times and the Pompidou Center in France, designed with Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini. Piano was awarded the top architecture prize as laureate in 1998.
Piano said he loves making buildings for public use because they are “the essence of cities.” He added: “I especially love to make buildings for art and beauty, and the reason is very simple. Because art and beauty makes people better people.”