“Taking you up”

The wide and open flight of stairs that connects the Museum’s ground floor to the second-floor gallery is a signature feature viewable virtually upon entering the building.

To commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the Neuberger Museum of Art, Chief Preparator and Head of Facilities David Bogosian explored the Museum’s construction.

In my research, I reviewed numerous images of states of construction of the building. With each review, H. Bernstein’s 1972 image of the wide and open flight of stairs that connects our ground floor to our second-floor gallery impressed me more and more.

A former Director once told me the design of the staircase was appropriated from one designed by Mies van der Rohe for the Arts Club of Chicago and provided an image of it, further supporting the decision to paint the railings white (from their original dark black-brown). Regardless of color, the staircase is a central and iconic feature of our space and even after so many years I continue to see in them a lyrical quality of “taking you up”: to more art, more experience, more education, more understanding. That they bear up under heavy tread belies the loftiness of experience they deliver in so doing.

Poetics aside, the image wonderfully captures the mess that can be involved in attaining the sublime. It’s fascinating to see this freeze-frame of process toward an institution that would honor and house the visionary collecting of Roy R. Neuberger and the inestimable value of the gift of that collection to residents of New York and visitors from all over the world.

Here is another construction image of the finished and more stately staircase we know and love:

David Bogosian
Chief Preparator and Head of Facilities
Neuberger Museum of Art