New American art Museums

Attending art museums is fast becoming a favorite weekend and holiday pastime for millions of Americans throughout this country - with the predictable result that new museums and museum additions are springing up from coast to coast, and from the Canadian border to the Deep South.

To illustrate the quality and stylistic range of contemporary museum-building , the Whitney Museum has assembled an exhibition of sketches, plans, and models for seven new American museums and museum expansion projects being planned or already under construction.

They are the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; the High Museum, Atlanta; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine; Shin'enKan (site not yet determined); and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.

Although a bit out of my line, I found the exhibit fascinating and thoroughly rewarding. Of the seven, I found the plans and models for the High Museum, the Hood Museum, and Shin'enKan the most intriguing - although I also liked the expansion project for the Portland Museum.

At the Whitney Museum through Oct. 10.