Met's New Look Lets the Light In

The Metropolitan Museum of Art reopens its American Wing tomorrow after a refurbishment that was “all about transparency,” its chairman says. Where benches and shrubs once constricted movement, now visitors can sit on a fountain’s edge, look out on Central Park, and ride a glass elevator “through rooms you probably never knew existed,” writes Barbara Hoffman in the New York Post.

Sculptures are now arranged in “a kind of conversation,” with a bronze Diana aiming an arrow at a nearby angel. Visitors will travel through time as they move from period room to period room chronologically. Touch screens provide enlightenment on the exhibits' stories. A new “airy mezzanine” is packed with 300 ceramic pieces—and looks onto another construction site, proof that the Met’s still growing.
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