Archinect - News

Yoshio Taniguchi, MoMA's surprise expansion architect, dies at 87

2024-12-26T10:36:00-05:00

Yoshio Taniguchi, the architect of MoMA’s 2004 redesign and expansion, has died at the age of 87. The New York Times reported the news, along with more details about his journey to the surprise 1997 commission win, following his death from pneumonia on December 16th.

Taniguchi was born to a prominent architect father in Tokyo in 1937 and studied at the Harvard GSD before returning to Japan in 1964. Significant museum projects include the Ken Domon Museum of Photography and the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures at the Tokyo National Museum. His only other American work is the Asia Society Texas Center in Houston. Taniguchi was the second Isamu Noguchi Award winner and dedicated the Yoshiro and Yoshio Taniguchi Museum of Architecture in Kanazawa in 2019.

Curator Tanja Hwang joins MoMA's Department of Architecture and Design

2024-01-09T12:39:00-05:00

New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has announced the addition of curator Tanja Hwang to its Department of Architecture and Design.

Effective today, January 9, Hwang will join the museum and begin working in a capacity that entails managing the design collection, expanding the department’s acquisitions program, organizing exhibitions, managing exhibition catalogs and other publications, as well as “cultivating relationships within the Museum and in the design community.”

Hwang begins at the museum after serving as one of the first curatorial staffers at Hong Kong’s Herzog & de Meuron-designed M+ museum and having completed her academic training at the Freie Universität Berlin, according to a LinkedIn profile.

In a statement, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA, Martino Stierli, said: “Tanja comes to us with a global perspective and a deep knowledge of the canonical history of modern design. With her background in organizing exhibitions at both the...

Refik Anadol's Machine Hallucinations generative AI piece acquired by MoMA

2023-10-11T15:59:00-04:00

Refik Anadol has made history as one of two prominent digital artists to have their works acquired into the permanent collection of the 94-year-old Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

The museum announced its acquisition of Anadol’s 2022 Generative AI piece Unsupervised – Machine Hallucinations, along with the blockchain-based piece 3FACE. 2022 from artist Ian Cheng, this week. Anadol's work was a gift to the museum by the 1OF1 Collection (which is led by Ryan Zurrer) and the RFC Collection, which is led by Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile and Desiree Casoni.

Writing on Instagram, Anadol commended the museum’s curatorial decision, saying it “inscribes a historic chapter as MoMA welcomes the first Generative AI and tokenized artwork into its esteemed permanent collection.” The work was one of three made for last year’s special solo exhibition using a machine learning algorithm to interpret publicly available data taken from the museum’s collection to produce reinterpreted images that...

Mies van der Rohe design for Indiana University is being built, 70 years later

2021-06-18T12:21:00-04:00

Indiana University (IU) has shared an update of their Mies Building at the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. The scheme, currently under construction, realizes a recently rediscovered 1952 design by Mies van der Rohe for the IU Bloomington campus. The scheme has been adapted for contemporary use by architects Thomas Phifer and Partners and is expected to open in the Fall of 2021.

When completed, the Mies Building will be a 60-foot-wide, 140-foot-long rectangular structure of thin, white-painted steel and expansive glass with 10-square-foot panes. Floor-to-ceiling windows will wrap around the entire second story, which will feature a central exterior square atrium to enhance the building’s aura of transparency. Much of the lower level is external, with the main second story elevated above the ground.

Exterior view of the northwest corner of the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design, a Mies van der Rohe Design, on the campus of Indiana University Bloomington. ...

MoMA to showcase China’s new generation of architects through “Reuse, Renew, Recycle” exhibition

2021-06-04T12:02:00-04:00

The Museum of Modern Art has announced details of “Reuse, Renew, Recycle: Recent Architecture from China,” an exhibition highlighting a new generation of Chinese architects and their commitment to social and environmental sustainability. On display from September 16, 2021 through July 4, 2022, the exhibition will present eight projects including the adaptive reuse of former industrial buildings, the recycling of building materials, the reinterpretation of ancient construction techniques, and the economic rejuvenation of rural villages and regions through non-invasive architecture.

Atelier Deshaus, Long Museum West Bund, Shanghai, China, 2012–2013. Photograph by Shengliang Su (MoMA 263.2020.4)

The exhibition features projects by Pritzker Prize–winning Amateur Architecture Studio (Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu), Archi-Union Architects (Philip F. Yuan), Atelier Deshaus (Liu Yichun and Chen Yifeng), DnA Design and Architecture (Xu Tiantian), Studio Zhu Pei (Zhu Pei), Vector Architects (Dong Gong...

MoMA re-opens Architecture & Design galleries as new Diller Scofidio + Renfro-designed expansion prepares for its public debut

2019-10-10T16:15:00-04:00

A new $450 million renovation of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) complex in New York City by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Gensler is getting ready to make its official debut.

As part of the expansion, the museum has also re-opened its dedicated Architecture and Design galleries, which, contrary to previous iterations for the museum's approach to curating architecture and design topics, will now be spread out along every floor of the museum complex. The change reflects a "curatorial vision of a 'both–and' approach, acknowledging architecture and design both as integral to the interdisciplinary conversation with the visual arts and as autonomous disciplines with specific histories and methodologies," according a MoMA press release.

Ahead of the much-anticipated opening, Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for The New York Times, previe...

MoMA's temporary closure provides a moment of self-reflection

2019-02-06T19:28:00-05:00

As the Museum of Modern Art begins the final stage of its $400 million overhaul, it will close for four months to reconfigure its galleries, rehang the entire collection and rethink the way that the story of modern and contemporary art is presented to the public. The Picassos and van Goghs will still be there, but the 40,000 square feet of additional space will allow MoMA to focus new attention on works by women, Latinos, Asians, African-Americans and other overlooked artists...

Over the span of its 89 year history, The Museum of Modern Art has been the subject of both praise and disappointment among cultural elites. In particular, its Diller Scofidio + Renfro-designed plan to expand into the adjacent American Folk Art Museum, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, was the subject of sharp criticism when it was announced only a few short years ago.

Rendering of new Museum of Modern Art Facade. Credit: Diller + Scofidio Architects.

But as that project draws closer to its opening day by the end of this year, the museum has decided to use the months of its temporary closure (between June 15th and Oct. 21st) as an opportunity to reconsider how it exhibits its world-famous collection. This not only means a reassessment of the segregation of media, but also that of racial and sexual representation.

“A new generation of curators is discovering the richness of what is in our collection, and there is great work being made around the world that we need to pay atte...

MoMA receives landmark gift of nine projects by Herzog & de Meuron

2019-01-25T14:49:00-05:00

The Museum of Modern Art has received a major donation courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron, whom have gifted the New York institution with materials relating to nine of their most influential built and unbuilt works. The contribution—which holds sketches, models, and architectural fragments as well as digital drawing sets and videos—will build upon the museum's previous collection of works by the Swiss firm, and bolster MoMA's vast and diverse holdings relating to architecture and design.

Herzog & de Meuron (Basel, est. 1978). 56 Leonard Street, New York, New York, USA. 2006–2008. Floor plans. Digital drawing files. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron Kabinett. Photo © Jacques Herzog und Pierre de Meuron Kabinett, Basel.

Herzog & de Meuron (Basel, est. 1978). 1111 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, Florida, USA. 2005–2008. Exhibition model, scale 1:90. Oak, 18 11/16 × 26 × 22 1/16″ (47.5 × 66 × 56 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of t...

Original 176 emoji join MoMA's permanent collection

2016-10-26T20:28:00-04:00

Who would have thought that emoji would be revered within the same museum walls that display the paintings of Van Gogh and Picasso? [MoMA] recently added NTT DoCoMo's original set of 176 emoji to their permanent collection as a gift...In early December, MoMA will debut an installation detailing the evolution of emoji and “will present them in a new light (and no doubt inspire a few selfies)”, says Paul Galloway, MoMA Collection Specialist in the Department of Architecture and Design.

Thanks to a licensing agreement between MoMA and NTT DoCoMo, the museum's permanent collection now includes the original 176 emoji that altered digital communication as we know it today. Read more on Bustler.

MoMA to celebrate Frank Lloyd Wright's 150th birthday with massive exhibition

2016-06-08T19:28:00-04:00

Titled “Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive” and billed by the museum as a “major retrospective,” the show will display about 450 works from the 1890s through the 1950s. [...] Many of the objects are drawn from the Frank Lloyd Wright Archive ... Key themes will include Wright’s involvement in global networks of architects, his preoccupation with decoration and his capacity for constructing his public image — a precursor of the “starchitect” age.

DS+R-led MoMA redesign scaled back, more details released

2016-01-27T13:02:00-05:00

Gone is the “Art Bay,” with a glass garage-like door that would have allowed visitors to enter galleries straight from the street. Gone, too, is the fourth-floor “Gray Box,” with acoustic absorption panels through which passers-by could have peered up at performance art in progress. And there will be no new public entrance to the sculpture garden on 54th Street. The Museum of Modern Art has eliminated these polarizing elements of its sweeping redesign, museum officials said on Tuesday...

MoMA officials also released more information on the construction, slated to begin in February with total costs estimated between $390 million and $400 million.

The Diller, Scofidio + Renfro-led renovation is the second major redesign for the influential museum in recent memory. Just over ten years ago, Yoshio Taniguchi completed a major, $858 million overhaul of the facilities.

According to the Times, the renovation will be divided into three stages: changes to the museum's easternmost site, then renovations to the Taniguchi-designed space, and finally new construction on the former site of the American Folk Art Museum, which was controversially demolished in 2014.

The eastern building is set to be opened up to improve flow to the main lobby, which will be significantly expanded with the bookstore and gift shop moved underground. Galleries on the third floor will be opened up forming two much larger spaces – one 5,000 sq. ft. and the other 10,000. New spaces won't have permanent w...

Jean Nouvel's super-tall 53W53 MoMA tower is "still an art"

2015-05-18T13:19:00-04:00

Nouvel’s aspirations for 53W53, scheduled for completion in fall 2018, sound almost modest: “It’s going to try to hold its place, [...] It’s going to try to be good enough for New York … it’s going to try to make its own small contribution, and it’s done in a way that ensures this contribution is readable, understandable, and it’s maybe a bit more precious than others. And it’s a little linked to this notion – a fairly disputed notion these days – that architecture is still an art, sometimes.”

The New York Times reviews MoMA exhibit, Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980

2015-05-01T11:12:00-04:00

The exhibition recalls an earlier era when architects there believed that social challenges should be tackled by design, that humane societies deserved beautiful new forms, and progressive development put faith in art, nature and the resilience of ordinary people.

Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times wrote a review on the recent MoMA exhibit, ‘Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980’. The exhibit highlights the work of Oscar Niemeyer, Lina Bo Bardi, Eladio Dieste, Rogelio Salmona and others who helped define Latin American modern architecture. On display are photographs, videos, drawings, blueprints and models. Some models shown in Kimmelman's article feature the work of University of Miami students who collaborated with MoMA on this exhibit.