Kunsthalle or Collecting Institution?

1960s Collection Founders

Lew Manilow discusses one of the critical decisions facing the museums founders.

Well, we started the concept—which I never really approved of—was a kunsthalle, which is the old German tradition of "only new things." And they're always rotating. I don't even know if there are kunsthalles left in the world. But the rest of us who were founders knew that that wasn't going to work. That we'd have to do both. We'd have to find old stuff, and we'd have to have new stuff, and you can't be forced into doing things that are new just because they're new. And you can show them together, so that [it] makes a good experience about art.

MCA groundbreaking ceremony, 1978. Photo: © MCA Chicago

MCA groundbreaking ceremony, 1978. Photo: © MCA Chicago

Related Stories