By footbridge, view and sensibility, the Modern Wing is connected to Millennium Park. Betsa Marsh photo
From the outside, architect Renzo Piano’s new Modern Wing for the Art Institute of Chicago is so restrained you want to take a pulse. But from the inside, the white walls, white oak floors and miles and miles of glass set a glow around the art and bring Chicago in through the panes.
View from the Modern Wing to Millennium Park and the Chicago Skyline. Betsa Marsh photo
The Modern Wing, which opens May 16, cozies up to Millennium Park, acting almost as call and response to architect Frank Gehry’s exuberance in next-door Millennium Park.
Where Gehry’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion peels back glittering stainless steel petals like an exploding rose, Piano’s Modern Wing answers in calm, vertical lines of glass, steel and limestone. Where Gehry’s BP Footbridge squiggles through the landscape, Piano’s 620-foot-long Nichols Bridgeway shoots a straight line from the AIC above Monroe Street into the park.
Inside, the Modern Wing traces art from 1900 to the present, sweeping from Matisse and Picasso through Warhol and Lichtenstein and up to Cy Twombly. Photography and architecture and design have new homes, too.
The Modern Wing is free through May 22, and on the 23rd prices pop up to $18 per adult, $12 per student and senior and free for children 2 and younger.
