sample essays of IELTS

12 Museums

From Boston to Los Angeles, from New York City to Chicago to Dallas,
museums are either planning, building, or wrapping up wholesale
expansion programs. These programs already have radically altered
facades and floor plans or are expected to do so in the not-too-distant
future.

In New York City alone, six major institutions have spread up and out
into the air space and neighborhoods around them or are preparing to do
so.

The reasons for this confluence of activity are complex, but one factor
is a consideration everywhere - space. With collections expanding, with
the needs and functions of museums changing, empty space has become a
very precious commodity.

Probably nowhere in the country is this more true than at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, which has needed additional space for
decades and which received its last significant facelift ten years ago.
Because of the space crunch, the Art Museum has become increasingly
cautious in considering acquisitions and donations of art, in some cases
passing up opportunities to strengthen its collections.

Deaccessing - or selling off - works of art has taken on new importance
because of the museum's space problems. And increasingly, curators have
been forced to juggle gallery space, rotating one masterpiece into
public view while another is sent to storage.

Despite the clear need for additional gallery and storage space,
however," the museum has no plan, no plan to break out of its envelope
in the next fifteen years," according to Philadelphia Museum of Art's
president.