The Barnes Foundation is a world-renowned cultural site threatened with destruction by removal of its famed art collection.

 

We all want a healthy, vibrant future for the Philadelphia region, but destruction of a neighboring cultural treasure, causing colossal waste of resources, including tax funds, is NOT the way. 

 

Why spend hundreds of millions of dollars to recreate what already exists only five miles away?

 

The Barnes should be preserved in its historic home and celebrated as a National Historic Landmark. 

 

We call upon all public officials and all leaders of the philanthropic community to recognize that the Barnes move is fiscally irresponsible.  The plan to dismantle and relocate the Barnes Foundation must be halted.

 

PENNSYLVANIA TAXPAYERS: $107,000,000* of your hard-earned tax dollars are slated to destroy the Barnes Foundation, a place that is eligible to become a National Historic landmark.
                                                    *Pennsylvania Capital Spending Bill H.B. 1213 passed in 2002

 

Cost of recreating the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia:	$400,000,000.
Value of the Barnes Foundation in Merion:	incalculable.

 

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“If there were other places like the Barnes, dispensing with it would not be tragic.  But one minus one is zero."

Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker

 

 

"It’s not too late to decide to celebrate Barnes instead of making an end run around him in the name of the public good.  If Philadelphia’s culture brokers can see past the move-it-or-lose-it fallacy, they might realize that they had an opportunity to preserve an unforgettable aesthetic experience…"

- Peter Linett, in The Wall Street Journal

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