The Morgan maps out a garden of enchantment

Long overlooked since Renzo Piano’s 2006 expansion moved the main entrance to Madison Avenue, the Morgan Library and Museum’s southern façade will become the focus of a light show under a $12.5m project to enhance the building’s exterior. The museum says that its current landscaping, essentially a simple lawn, does little to engage the public: today it unveiled plans to introduce a new garden that would draw visitors onto paths of bluestone patterned after the library’s floor. In a scheme overseen by the landscape designer Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, the Morgan plans to introduce beds of periwinkle flanking the library’s loggia and brightly hued herbaceous beds. A Roman sarcophagus, a Roman funerary stele and two Renaissance corbels drawn from the museum’s holdings will add to the contemplative atmosphere. But the show-stopper is the illumination from Tillett Lighting Design Associates: the museum promises to create an “enchanting, moonlit nocturnal environment” that will throw features of its palazzo-like façade into relief.