The old Barney’s women’s clothing store in downtown Manhattan is becoming a museum of Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhist culture.
After a $60 million overhaul it will become the Rubin Museum of Art, a project of Donald Rubin, founder and chairman of Multiplan healthcare company, and his wife Shelley.
Scheduled to open Oct. 2, the museum will house the Rubin’s extensive collection of the art of Tibet and its neighbors and will exhibit traveling shows such as the personal art collection of the Dalai Lama, scheduled to open there Feb. 8, 2005.
Barney’s closed eight years ago at its Seventh Avenue and 17th Street address and moved uptown to Madison Avenue. The Rubins purchased the property for $22 million along with an adjacent six-story building and commissioned architect Richard Blinder to redesign it for museum purposes.
Blinder has created an elaborate entrance in the form of the mandala, the Buddhist universe, but the store’s spectacular Art Deco marble and stainless steel spiral staircase beneath a circular skylight has been retained.
The museum will include a photography gallery, a library, and an auditorium.
