Archinect - News

OMA unveils a bigger, newer New Museum for NYC

2019-06-26T18:19:00-04:00

The Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) has unveiled a faceted, prismatic design for the firm’s proposed expansion to the SANAA-designed New Museum in New York City.

Designed by OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, the 60,000-square-foot addition marks OMA’s first public building in New York. According to a press release announcing the project, the wedge-shaped addition is designed to “complement and respect the integrity” of the flagship museum, which opened in 2007.

Though the New Museum does not maintain a permanent collection of its own, the institution has been remarkably popular since its opening. Annual attendance at the museum has skyrocketed from roughly 60,000 visitors to over 400,000 patrons in recent years, while the museum’s staff has quintupled to 150 workers, according to The New York Times.

Rendering depicting the facade of the proposed OMA addition. Image courtesy of OMA and Bloom.

The project will help the New Museum soothe...

New Museum appoints V. Mitch McEwen as curator of IdeasCity initiative

2018-07-24T18:04:00-04:00

The New Museum announced today the appointment of V. Mitch McEwen as Curator of IdeasCity, the museum's initiative exploring the future of cities. McEwen is the principal and cofounder of A(n) Office, a collaborative of design studios in Detroit and New York exploring the intersection of architecture and exhibition.

IdeasCity is a creative and collaborative enterprise operating through conferences, workshops, commissions, projects, and exhibitions in order to investigate key issues and proposes solutions. The Curator is a two-year appointment linked to the biennial presentation of IdeasCity in New York and is responsible for the two-year cycle leading up to this presentation.

As Curator of IdeasCity, McEwen will head up the 2018–19 cities and launch an open call for cities around the world to apply for the 2020–21 cycle. The next IdeasCity will take place in Toronto on September 15, 2018, in partnership with the Bentway.

Since 2017, McEwen has been Assistant Professor at Princeto...

Cooper Robertson tapped as executive architect for New Museum expansion

2018-01-25T18:36:00-05:00

Last year, the New Museum announced that Rem Koolhaas and Shoehei Shigematsu would be heading the institution's expansion that will nearly double their footprint in New York. The contemporary art museum has been situated at 235 Bowery in a building designed by the Japanese firm SANAA since 2007.

Shortly thereafter, the museum bought a neighboring six-story masonry building that has since housed their incubator programs. As part of the expansion, the museum plans to connect the two, adjacent structures while overhauling 251 Bowery for an additional 50,000 square feet of galleries, improved public circulation, and flexible space for the institution’s experimental programs.

In collaboration with the design architects at OMA New York, Cooper Robertson has been selected as the executive architects for the expansion. Spearheaded by partner Scott Newman, FAIA, and senior associate Andrew Barwick, RA, this commission is the latest in a long line of notable museum projects by the firm, whos...

New Museum taps Rem Koolhaas’ OMA to design next phase of Bowery expansion

2017-10-11T12:32:00-04:00

The New Museum Board of Trustees announced Wednesday that OMA’s Rem Koolhaas and Shoehei Shigematsu will design the museum’s new building at 231 Bowery as part of the institution’s expansion. The new structure, purchased by the contemporary art museum in 2008, will link the museum’s Sanaa-designed building and double their footprint on the Bowery, adding 50,000-square-feet of space. OMA’s first public project in New York City, 231 Bowery is expected to break ground in 2019.

First announced last May, the museum’s expansion makes way for more galleries, improved public circulation and flexible space for new programs. In a press release, a member of the museum’s board of trustees, Lisa Phillips, called OMA a “great choice.” She added, “Koolhaas has thought deeply about the identity and landscape of our city going back to his landmark book Delirious New York, published in 1978, a year after the Museum’s founding. Though he is one of the world’s finest architects with a deeply civic and ...

Create sonic architecture with mesh, music, and lights at the New Museum this weekend

2015-08-06T14:50:00-04:00

Museum displays are typically meant to be seen and not touched, but a recent wave of exhibitions is upending those rules. Take DELQA, an interactive music and light installation opening in the New Museum's NEW INC space on August 6. Showcasing the music of Matthew Dear combined with Microsoft's Kinect technology, the project allows participants to touch, push and poke suspended mesh walls to manipulate a musical composition, creating their own unique experience of the space.

If you're on the hunt for weekend plans in NYC, DELQA will be at the New Museum only from August 6-9!

The New Museum launches new skateboard shaped as the SANAA-designed museum building

2014-07-30T19:03:00-04:00

As a nod to skate culture innovation, the New Museum in New York collaborated with U.S. skateboard manufacturer Chapman Skateboards to create a limited-edition skate deck shaped as the iconic staggered-block building that was designed by Japanese firm SANAA.

Inspired by a New Museum Store window installation by Canyon Castator and Richard Duff from 2012, the Chapman x New Museum skateboard is handcrafted from Canadian Hardrock Maple wood featuring a high-gloss paint mix. Only 150 of the skateboards were produced. Retailed at $125, they're available for purchase at the New Museum store or online.

Check out the video below to see the board in action.

See more skate-related posts here.

SO-IL and Gensler to design creative cultural incubator for New Museum

2013-11-01T18:06:00-04:00

The New Museum will be opening an incubator for art, technology, and design next summer in the institution's adjacent building at 231 Bowery in New York. SO-IL architects in collaboration with Gensler will design the new 11,000 sq.foot facility, which will be located inside a 19th-century structure that formerly belonged to artists like James Rosenquist and Tom Wesselmann.

Developed by Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director of the New Museum and Deputy Developer Karen Wong, the incubator will serve as a collaborative platform of shared educational and professional workspace for more than 60 start-up companies and creative entrepreneurs. The project is the latest addition to program series that aims to challenge the boundaries and relevance of museum practice in the 21st century.

Prospective members will go through a rigorous application process before being selected by the incubator's Director and staff committee. Incubator members will then pay a monthly fee in exchange for...

Recap: The New Museum’s Ideas City Festival By William Hanley

2013-05-10T03:02:00-04:00

At the Ideas City street fair: An installation made from discarded styrofoam by Terreform ONE rises in front of Raumlabor's Spacebuster, a mobile inflatable pavilion comissioned by the Storefront for Art and Architecture.

Davidson Rafailidis Wins 2013 IDEAS CITY StreetFest Competition

2013-04-25T14:46:00-04:00

The submission "MirrorMirror" by Buffalo-based architecture practice Davidson Rafailidis has been selected by Storefront for Art and Architecture and the New Museum as the winning entry of the 2013 IDEAS CITY StreetFest Tenting Competition.

New Museum - "Going Gaga with SANAA"

2012-01-26T16:33:00-05:00

Can a building ever be compared to Lady Gaga? Most experts may say no, but they obviously haven't seen the New Museum, one of the best looking museums ever made according to Delaine Isaac.

Carsten Höller Is Installing a Slide at New Museum

2011-10-07T12:28:13-04:00

If all goes as planned, the New Museum’s five-year-old building on the Bowery will become something of an amusement park beginning Oct. 26, with visitors hurtling through a giant plastic tube from the fourth floor to the second

‘Cronocaos,’ by Rem Koolhaas, at the New Museum

2011-05-23T13:22:17-04:00

Mr. Koolhaas’s vision is even more apocalyptic. A skilled provocateur, he paints a picture of an army of well-meaning but clueless preservationists who, in their zeal to protect the world’s architectural legacies, end up debasing them by creating tasteful scenery for docile consumers while airbrushing out the most difficult chapters of history. The result, he argues, is a new form of historical amnesia, one that, perversely, only further alienates us from the past.