At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Frank Gehry’s Renovation Goes Beneath the Surface

Steve Hall + Nick Merrick PhotographersMuseums never have enough space; like hospitals and airports they restlessly expand. But the Philadelphia Museum of Art, stranded on its urban Acropolis—the Ben Franklin Parkway to the east and Fairmount Park to the west—has no room to grow, at least not horizontally. In 2006 it boldly decided to expandwithin its footprint. This would be done in stages and the first, officially known as the Core Project, opened Friday.

The architect of the project was Frank Gehry, a surprising choice. He designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao , the free-form jubilee of curved, tapered, and angular shapes, sheathed in shimmering titanium, that best expresses his signature style. The building was widely understood as an assault on the very idea of the traditional museum, the “encyclopedia encased in a palace,” as the sneer ran. And as museums go, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is as encyclopedic and palatial as they come.

His task was complicated by the museum’s intricate plan. A U-shaped complex, it opens up to the east with a broad terrace and the mighty stairs made famous by the “Rocky” movies. But its two public entrances were designed to lead the visitor upwards and, even worse, were on different levels. The great eastern stair hall sits higher than the west entrance hall, a concession to the hilltop site.

In his effort to open up the building, Mr. Gehry was aided by its great hidden asset, the Vaulted Walkway, a 640-foot long barrel-vaulted passage that runs dramatically across its full width, from north to south, across the bottom of the “U.” Once a secondary public entrance and long ago closed off, it has been reopening in stages. The North Vaulted Walkway opened two years ago, entered from a handsome, newly reopened north entrance; the southern portion has now been completed.

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