NY Met museum rebuilds wing

"You leave the 19th-century galleries, which finish with early Picasso and Matisse, then cross the hall and are abruptly confronted with contemporary art made 100 years later," says Gary Tinterow, former chairman of the Met's department of 19th-century modern and contemporary art, and who now directs the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Campbell says he has in the back of his mind a completion goal of 2020, when the Met will turn 150, and he will aim to have the redesign include an expansion of the roof garden and, possibly, even a new entrance to the museum from Central Park. The current building "in a sense turns the museum's back on the park", he says.

No budget figures have been released for the undertaking, but projects of this scale typically cost hundreds of millions of dollars, a significant sum, though in keeping with what the Met board has raised for prior additions.

One spur for the decision is the Met's eight-year agreement to lease the Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue from the Whitney, giving the Met space for its contemporary collection during construction. The Whitney is moving next spring.

Another factor is the Met's interest in creating an appropriately important home for the Lauder gift, valued at more than $1 billion.

"Leonard's collection is such a huge missing link between our very strong collections of Impressionism and Post-impressionism and our moderately strong holdings of early 20th century that if we reconfigure the galleries, we have the potential to tell the chronological story," Campbell says.