PHILAPHILIA Dead-Ass Proposal of the Week: Calder Museum

The only known rendering of what could have been.

2100 Ben Franklin Parkway -- This is one of the most disappointing Dead-Ass Proposals ever to hit Philadelphia. This project wasn't killed because of NIMBYs, zoning issues, or crooked developers. This one died an agonizing, ass-achingly painful death. People might have been pissed off about the construction of the Barnes Museum, but at least that got built and is kicking ass all over the place -- despite being in a butt-fugly building. This one didn't even get that far.

The Calder Family is forever attached to the city of Philadelphia. The Ben Franklin Parkway touts great works by three generations of Calders. The 250-plus statues on City Hall were conceived by the 26-year-old Alexander Milne Calder, the Logan Circle fountain was created by Alexander Stirling Calder, and the big-ass mobile hanging in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's lobby was the work of Alexander "Sandy" Calder. That's fucking incredible. Are three generations of your family represented on a gigantic Parkway? Didn't think so. 

After bandying about the idea for years (some records say it was discussed as early as 1974), Gov. Ed Rendell took the initiative to get a Calder Museum built on the Parkway throughout the late 1990s. In 1996, the Philadelphia Museum of Art conducted a study to see if a Calder Museum would make them the oodles and oodles of dinero they so love. It must have proved profit-worthy, because immediately after that, the PMA went on the warpath to get this thing built. 

In March of 2000, the Fairmount Park Association gave over the small triangle of land on the Parkway between 21st and 22nd streets, across the way from the Rodin Museum and future Barnes Museum. Soon after that, the Calder Museum was officially announced with a proposed completion date of 2008.  In 2001, the PMA was able to team-up with the Alexander and Louisa Calder Foundation into order to create a nonprofit called the Calder Museum Partners, a Legion of Doom dedicated to getting a Calder Museum built. 

The Partners, with a board consisting of city officials, PMA bigwigs and a Calder descendant, went balls-to-the-walls with the project. They were able to commission one of the Earth's most bad-ass architects of the period, Tadao Ando, to design a 30,000-square-foot, $70 million super-museum that would be the envy of the world. The museum would be mostly underground, with only a small structure above the surface. Not the most exciting design ever, but better than the bumshit-fertilized patch of grass that space was at the time.

A drawing related to the project. Don't fuck with my "Graden".

Armed with a board full of go-getters and a design from a mega-starchitect, the fundraising effort began. They were able to get grants from the William Penn Foundation and Pew Charitable Trust, but couldn't get much more. To drum up support for the Calder Museum, the PMA set up an outdoor display of Sandy Calder's works on the site of the future museum, calling it "Calders on the Parkway".

It didn't work. By June of 2003, the Calder Museum Partners broke off their relationship, despite a $15 million commitment by mega-millionaire (and board president) H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest. Nonetheless, the project wasn't completely dead. In 2004, the PMA turned to Lord Cultural Resources Planning and Management Inc., the folks that helped them conduct their 1996 study, with the hopes that MAYBE these dudes could figure out a way to get this motherfucker built. Ed Rendell offered $15 million of state funding to get the thing going. The "Calders on the Parkway" sculpture garden was upgraded at about the same time. Despite all that, the project was declared officially dead on Sept. 15, 2005. They just couldn't scrounge up the money needed to move the museum forward. The sculpture garden lived on, but was eventually removed in 2009, leaving an inexplicable curvy gravel sidewalk running though the space today.

One of the reasons cited for the failure of the Calder Museum was the Calder family itself. Many of the pieces needed for the museum were family heirlooms that would have to be ripped from the hands of the descendents and leased by the museum for a minimum of 99 years. Any shorter amount of time was seen as off-putting to investors (which is interesting, as investors seemed to be put off by the project anyway). Negotiations with the family (a.k.a. convincing them to give up their most treasured material possessions for 99 years) consumed much of the planning stage of the initiative.

What a shame that this museum couldn't get built. It's badass enough that there's the PMA (plus annex and new underground addition), Rodin Museum (with exterior restored) and Barnes Foundation Museum all on one gigantic street in Philadelphia. Adding the Calder Museum to that milieu would make the Parkway that much more ass-kickerous and finally make it live up to its original vision as a cultural megacenter. The Calder wasn't the only proposal not to make it to the Parkway: the John G. Johnson Gallery, an Episcopal Cathedral, and new campuses for all of our major colleges were also once set for a Parkway appearance. Oh well.

The sun-drenched site of the would-be museum.