Mega Museum, Riv. Vu

President Clinton wasn't the only pol burnishing his legacy while everyone else sweated out the recounts. Last week New York's Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced he'd back the Guggenheim Museum's plan to build a huge arts complex, designed by Frank Gehry, on three city-owned piers in lower Manhattan. Giuliani hasn't always been a pal to local arts institutions--last year he threatened to block city funds to the Brooklyn Museum over a controversial painting. But now the mayor was invoking the oath of fealty of the leaders of ancient Athens, to leave their city "far more beautiful" than they had found it. The project, he said, "will make a distinctive contribution to the culture and architecture of the city." Then he put $68 million of city money where his mouth was.

The Guggenheim's ambitious director, Thomas Krens, has been lobbying to re- create the success of the museum's branch in Bilbao, Spain, with a Gehry building in New York. (The Guggenheim's also opening a branch in Las Vegas and planning another in Brazil.) Gehry's preliminary design for the complex would make it 10 times the size of the famous Frank Lloyd Wright Guggenheim building, with two theaters, an outdoor skating rink and a public plaza in addition to galleries. (What will fill all this space, says Krens, besides art already owned by the Guggenheim, are newly promised collections, art lent by the Hermitage Museum in Russia and works in the areas of design and technology.) The Gehry model is fantastic: it's built high on stilts on the East River edge, with a tower surrounded by swirls of shimmering "ribbons." "I think of it as a building that's floating above a park, that has a cloudlike quality," says Gehry. In its exuberance it stands in lively counterpoint to the surrounding buttoned-down skyscrapers.

But let's not fall too hard for this particular model--the design is likely to change a lot. What's next in the process are environmental-impact studies and addressing the neighbors' concerns, including worries about traffic and transportation (the complex will supposedly attract more than 2 million visitors per year). "We think the project must be scaled down," says Madelyn Wils, chair of the local community board. Then there are the eternal verities of time and money. Construction could cost $800 million (insurance tycoon Peter Lewis has promised $250 million, and fund-raising efforts are likely to target big corporate donors). And the time? "It's going to take 100 years," jokes Krens. "No, no, I would hope it might take six years altogether." That might be optimistic, but to get a first-class Frank Gehry building, it may well be worth whatever the wait.