Museums

　　From Boston to Los Angeles, from New York City to Chicago to Dallas,

　　museums are either planning, building, or wrapping up wholesale expansion

　　programs. These programs already have radically altered facades and floor

　　plans or are expected to do so in the not-too-distant future.

　　In New York City alone, six major institutions have spread up and out into

　　the air space and neighborhoods around them or are preparing to do so.

　　The reasons for this confluence of activity are complex, but one factor

　　is a consideration everywhere -- space. With collections expanding, with

　　the needs and functions of museums changing, empty space has become a very

　　precious commodity.

　　Probably nowhere in the country is this more true than at the Philadelphia

　　Museum of Art, which has needed additional space for decades and which

　　received its last significant facelift ten years ago. Because of the space

　　crunch, the Art Museum has become increasingly cautious in considering

　　acquisitions and donations of art, in some cases passing up

　　opportunities to strengthen its collections.

　　Deaccessing -- or selling off -- works of art has taken on new importance

　　because of the museum's space problems. And increasingly, curators have

　　been forced to juggle gallery space, rotating one masterpiece into public

　　view while another is sent to storage.

　　Despite the clear need for additional gallery and storage space, however,

　　"the museum has no plan, no plan to break out of its envelope in the next

　　fifteen years," according to Philadelphia Museum of Art's president.