The Whitney Museum of American Art

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The Whitney Museum of American Art is world-renowned art museum with a unique collection of more than 25,000 works by thousands of artists in the United States. This fascinating space attracts nearly a million visitors from around the world each year, and is particularly popular for the Whitney Biennial — the longest-running survey of contemporary art in America. If you walk the galleries of the Whitney, you will often hear the patrons speaking of the museum building as a work of art itself. Designed by starchitect Renzo Piano, the Whitney looks like a spaceship that has landed on the West Side of Manhattan. The inside, however, creates a different impression. The use of reclaimed century-old wood planks throughout the gallery floors to evoke an artist's studio, and the stunning views of the flowing Hudson River, make the Whitney feel much more local and site-specific than its previous incarnation at the building designed by Bauhaus architect, Marcel Breuer.

The pursuit for the opportunity to build the Whitney involved educating the business development team about the significance of this client and how the project would become a world stage for international art lovers. For the proposal response and presentation to the Whitney, finding the right previous experience by the builder required digging into bigger jobs with hidden gems of relevant projects: the nearby IAC building, designed by Frank Gehry, had the largest interior media wall, and Hearst Tower, designed by Norman Foster, had commissioned fellow Brit, Richard Long to create Riverlines, a 40- by 70-foot "mud work" for its six-story lobby. The museum-quality installation was made by Long with mud from River Avon and the Hudson River. And finally, footage from the Whitney archives, which shows sculptor Alexander Calder, wearing a hardhat of the builder as he directed the assembly of La Grande Voile outside MIT's Green Building, designed by I. M. Pei.

New York City is home to many world-class art museums and more than 1,000 art galleries, a third of which are clustered in Chelsea. Before the Whitney was built just north of that neighborhood, the art gallery scene was shifting across the city to the Bowery. The Whitney's decision to relocate from midtown to this area not only moored the local galleries but also added to the buzz around the High Line elevated linear park on the West Side, which starts at the Whitney and makes it way up to Hudson Yards. The Whitney's success has also had a positive rippling affect on the local business district, which is now bustling with restaurants, stores, and trendy hotels. Renzo Piano designed a piazza in front of the museum's entrance with his urban sensibility to make a place for visitors and passersby to meet and mingle. The museum has also been a draw for vendors and musicians. The Whitney is free for adolescents and has a ground level gallery for the public.