Day-Tripping

Yesterday, my 18 year-old daughter and I made a trip to the Detroit Institute of Art. It has been a long time since I have been there. Long as in I was single and childless the last time I was there. At any rate, they have completed an enormous renovation/expansion since then, and we knew as soon as we got there and looked at a map that we would need to come back another day in order to see all of the collections. We had visited the Toledo Museum of Art the day after school got out and had been completely awed by the modern art collection, so that was our major focus yesterday. We also looked through the Native American, Asian, African, and Egyptian galleries. The Egyptian gallery was being renovated so there were only a few pieces on display in a temporary location. The Modern and Contemporary Art Collection was amazing. Even though we had narrowed our focus, we still had to move at a faster pace than we would have liked in order to finish before closing time. We had a wonderful day and are planning on returning to see the rest of the collection.
The $158 million renovation of the museum included replacing the stone facade on the north and south wings with mirrored sheets of granite. The white with black veined granite is beautiful, but wholly at odds with the original central structure. I was trying to remember the facade material it replaced, because it would have to have been pretty bad for this to be an improvement. On its own, it's quite beautiful. It's just in juxtaposition with the original that it becomes heinous. The University of Michigan recently constructed an enormous addition to the Alumni Art Museum in Ann Arbor (beaux arts style), and even though the architectural design of the addition is very modern, the materials (limestone cladding) are an exact match to the original building. I think the completed building is beautiful, because the beauty of the original was respected. I don't understand why there was so little apparent attempt for cohesiveness with the DIA renovation. I don't like to be negative about improvements when they are truly needed, but as a whole, this one is just plain ugly.