Raising (Hell Over) the Barnes

You've got to hand it to them — they're tenacious.

Yesterday, the Friends of the Barnes Foundation petitioned Judge Stanley R. Ott to reconsider his decision to let the museum relocate from the Philadelphia suburbs to the center of the city's arts scene. (The move would allow the museum to generate more income and avoid bankruptcy.)

Since 2004, when Judge Ott overrode a mandate Dr. Albert C. Barnes made in his will that no work in his collection ever be moved from its Merion, Pennsylvania home (not even for a loan), the Friends have been lobbying for a reversal. In the petition filed in the Montgomery County Orphans' Court on Monday, they argue that new sources of revenue for the museum merit a review of the ruling. In June, Montgomery County proposed to buy the Barnes' property for $50 million through a bond issue and lease it back to them; the foundation could use the cash to establish an endowment. And in July, a new zoning law allowed the museum to permit more than twice as many visitors per year; admission is $10 per person.

Backed by powerful allies, including The Pew Charitable Trusts, Annenberg Foundation, and The Lenfest Foundation, the Barnes is more or less ignoring its opponents and forging ahead with its plans to move to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, home to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Rodin Museum. In late April, it announced a short list of architects to design its new home, among them Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the firm that did the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and is leading the development of The High Line in New York.

We don't pretend to know anything about the dollar amount required to keep a museum's doors open. But we do know that the Barnes will be accessible to a much broader demographic in Philadelphia, and Dr. Barnes did, after all, found the museum with a populist's notion of arts education.

The adversaries of change can at least take comfort that the collection's new quarters will be surrounded by elements of its past: The Parkway and the Rodin Museum were designed by Paul Philippe Cret, architect of Dr. Barnes' suburban gallery.