Morgan Plans $75M Expansion

The Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, a research library and museum, has announced a $75 million expansion project. Managers plan to greatly increase the exhibit area; construct a new reading room; create an auditorium; and forge an underground vault in bedrock, increasing the library's storage capacity by 70 percent. The construction will force the library to close for two years. The project is expected to begin in 2003; fundraising has just begun.

The designs, by architect Renzo Piano, would reinvent the Morgan's campus of landmark buildings, adding a glass-enclosed piazza in the middle of the block and moving its entrance to Madison Avenue. The plans are pending the approval of New York's Landmarks Preservation Commission.

"The library has always had a dual mission as an independent research library for scholars and as a museum for the public," said Director Charles Pierce. The new plan—which seeks to raise the Morgan's profile among the museumgoing public while creating more space for researchers—maintains the balance, he said. Expanded reading room space is especially important, since later this year the library is launching an online bibliographic database of its holdings named Corsair, after one of Pierpont Morgan's four yachts.

In all, the expansion would add 70,000 square feet. Built between 1902 and 1906, the structure began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan. In 1924, 11 years after Morgan's death, his son opened the library to the public. An annex was built in 1928. In 1987, the library doubled in size through the acquisition of a nearby town house; a garden court was built to connect the house with the annex and original library.