Mariët Westermann Rewires the Guggenheim for Speed
Fifteen months in, Mariët Westermann is pushing the Guggenheim toward speed and shared collections while preparing Frank Gehry’s Abu Dhabi outpost. Inside the museum’s new playbook.
Mariët Westermann’s 15-month test at the Guggenheim is less coronation, more stress lab. The first woman to run the foundation slid in on June 1, 2024, and has been rewiring a global brand to behave like a neighborhood engine.
The switch flips after dark. Late Shift nights have become a proving ground for younger crowds, prompting the museum to play with opening hours and rethink how people flow through its doors. It’s basic, it’s bold, and it’s working because it listens to the street.
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Collections are getting a new passport. Westermann keeps pushing a share-don’t-hoard logic—joint ownership, loaning at scale, and cost sharing—made concrete by the D.Daskalopoulos gift split with MCA Chicago. It’s a model that treats stewardship like infrastructure, not trophy hunting.
All eyes tilt to Saadiyat. Gehry’s Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is tracking toward a 2026 opening as the district fills in around it—Louvre Abu Dhabi already humming, Zayed National Museum slated to debut this winter. Westermann’s job is to land the plane and make the programming feel alive from day one.
The wager is clear: a constellation of museums with local tempos, shared muscle, and curators free to program for their cities under one mission. If the nights stay busy and the loans keep moving, the Guggenheim’s next decade won’t be about size—it’ll be about speed.
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