City of Brotherly Love Gets an Arts Upgrade

The Philadelphia Museum of Art's new Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building officially opens on Saturday. It cost $90 million to buy what used to be the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company just across the street from the museum proper and give it a Gluckman Mayner facelift. And it's been a long time coming for the museum, which has been stuffed with art and short on wall and floor space. The Perelman Building will allow PMA to rifle through its storage facilities and bring out things that it's been forced to keep locked away from public view. Specifically, it'll be home to costumes, textiles, prints, drawings, photographs, and modern and contemporary design.

It's only part of the Philadelphia museum's plan to refashion itself. About a year ago, PMA announced that Frank Gehry of Guggenheim Bilbao fame would renovate and expand underground space in its main building to create new galleries for Asian, American and contemporary art. That'll cost an estimated $500 million.

When you consider the Philadelphia Museum of Art's grand plans within the context of the possibility of the Barnes Foundation making its way to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and a reported rumor that the idea of a Calder Museum may be revived, it's looking like the City of Brotherly Love may be positioning itself to compete more on par with cities like New York and London for the attention of the art world.

Several months ago, we talked to Stephanie Naidoff, Philadelphia's Director of Commerce about this cultural renaissance (the city's Free Library is also undertaking a Moshe Safdie-designed expansion project). "What we have about to happen in Philadelphia is nothing short of a miracle," she said.