Archinect - News

Six years since #FolkMoMA, the state of folk art at MoMA

2019-06-07T13:50:00-04:00

What I’ll miss during the Museum of Modern Art’s four-month public shutdown is something I’ve already been missing for five years and will probably continue to miss when the expanded museum reopens in October. I’m talking about the presence on West 53rd Street of the American Folk Art Museum, which was physically demolished in 2014, and whose site the expanded MoMA absorbs, but whose spirit lives on as a restless ghost in the corporate machine that MoMA is.

Holland Cotter, NYT co-chief art critic, on the state of art apart from the usual household names at MoMA since the TWBTA-designed American Folk Art Museum building next door was demolished in 2014, as well as looking ahead to the reopening of the expanded MoMA this fall.

"I would suggest that we, and MoMA, don’t need any more Rauschenbergs, or Richters, or Serras, or Twomblys," writes Cotter. "What we do need is 'many others.' And some of those Others were, for 13 years, to be found in the Folk Art Museum next door. Maybe MoMA can now be persuaded to acknowledge its spirit, and their genius, in its expanded home."

DS+R vs. Tod Williams Billie Tsien?

2016-06-01T14:40:00-04:00

It is not the first time, though, that a design like this has been pitched for the university. However inadvertently, the DS+R design resembles another proposal for the campus—a draft project that was eventually revised. While the resemblance between two draft renderings is hardly consequential, this one comes as a surprise, given the nature of the projects and the history between the firms.

Raking only the choicest aesthetic muck, in this piece Kriston Capps wonders at the passing similarities between Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects' initial proposed design for the University of Chicago's David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts and Diller, Scofidio, and Renfro's recently unveiled plans for the Rubenstein Forum, before bringing up the destruction of TWBTA's Folk Art Museum Building, which was destroyed to make way for DS+R's MoMA expansion. As Capps writes, "The tortured history between these firms suggests that a resemblance is something that these firms would rather avoid."

The latest on TWBTA:

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...

Revisiting the American Folk Art Museum controversy, through comics

2014-08-14T13:01:00-04:00

Artist and animator Sam Grinberg revisits the fight over the future of the American Folk Art Museum.

The Folly of Saving What You Kill

2014-04-24T13:12:00-04:00

[...] MoMA has said it would detach and preserve the facade’s 63 textured copper-bronze panels. One might suppose that salvage is preferable to annihilation, but before we get too comfortable with such piecemeal preservation, it is worth noting that the panel-by-panel disassembly and storage of an architectural treasure’s metal facade has been tried before in New York City, with comically disastrous results. Who around here remembers the Laing Stores?

Editor's Picks #364

2014-04-22T21:24:00-04:00

For the latest edition of the Working out of the Box feature Archinect talked with Emily Fischer, Founder of Haptic Lab.

In the interview she explains how she started "The very first quilted map I made was designed to be a wayfinding tool for the visually impaired; my mother was diagnosed with glaucoma and macular degeneration while I was a student at TCAUP”.

Fred Scharmen commented "Those kites are amazing!".

Meanwhile issue #12 of Screen/Print highlighted The Cairo Review's "Future of the City" along with One:Twelve (the student-run journal from the Knowlton School of Architecture) seventh issue, Black and White.

News
As demolition of the Folk Art Museum began Amelia and Paul moderated a conversation between Archinect Contributors Ken Koense and Donna Sink, Quilian Riano and Lee Rosenbaum, who writes about art museums for the Wall Street Journal.

vado retro was curious "Would we have the same outrage say if a hospital were the ones tearing down the FAM...Our response of outrage is a...

As demolition of Folk Art Museum begins, Archinect reflects on historical implications

2014-04-16T13:15:00-04:00

The axe is set to fall on the American Folk Art Museum -- after months of controversy and protest, MoMA initiated its expansion and began preparing the FAM for demolition this past Monday. As per prior concessions by MoMA, the museum's distinctive façade will be preserved, but it's unlikely to abate the sour feelings of those who oppose both the loss of the FAM, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro's expansion designs.

When MoMA first announced it would raze the FAM in April of 2013, the news resonated not only as a blow to preservationism and sustainability, but as an issue of architectural ethics and institutional monopolies. #folkmoma became a rallying post for protest and alternative proposals, and the widespread news coverage brought architectural drama to the front page.

But pro-con feuding aside, the Folk/MoMA issue implicates difficult questions of architecture's responsibilities -- to preservation, sustainability, other architects, and the public’s opinion. Architects and Archinect c...

Coming Soon to MoMA, Lots of Knocking Next Door

2014-04-14T15:28:00-04:00

The Museum of Modern Art’s controversial decision to demolish a neighbor, the former American Folk Art Museum, is about to become reality. On Monday, scaffolding and protective netting will begin to go up around the folk art building, at 45 West 53rd Street, the museum confirmed on Friday. [...] The building’s facade will be removed first, panel by panel, and taken to storage. Its future remains uncertain. Demolition is expected to continue through the summer.

Previously

MoMA will preserve Folk Art Museum's facade

2014-02-12T14:32:00-05:00

Contrary to what you may have read lately, the Museum of Modern Art is intent on carefully preserving the former American Folk Art Museum next door. At least, the part of it that is most recognizable to the public: an 82-foot-high sculptural ensemble of 63 panels, cast in a gorgeous copper-bronze alloy [...] “We will take the facade down, piece by piece, and we will store it,” Glenn D. Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, said in an interview last week.

Editor's Picks #353

2014-02-05T14:37:00-05:00

For the latest edition of Working out of the Box, Archinect talked with Miguel McKelvey, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer at WeWork. He just so happened to study architecture at University of Oregon with Paul Petrunia, Archinect's founder!

Mr. McKelvey explains "I have applied what I learned in architecture to pretty much every aspect of building a business - and for the right person, I would make the argument that architecture is a better preparation for being an entrepreneur than business school is".

Meanwhile edition #6 of Screen/Print an experiment in translation across media, highlights MONU's 19th issue, Greater Urbanism.

News

Archinect contributors / Parsons MArch students Ayesha Ghosh and Alex Stewart attended a panel discussion regarding MoMA expansion and Folk Museum demolition. The event was hosted jointly by the Architectural League, the Municipal Art Society, and the AIA's New York chapter and everyone in the audience missed the State of the Union address.

Ayesha and Alex...

WATCH: Diller, Lowry, critics, writers and more discuss MoMA's expansion plans

2014-02-04T18:31:00-05:00

As reported last week by Archinectors Ayesha Ghosh and Alex Stewart, a discussion regarding MoMA's expansion plan and the intended demolition of the American Folk Art Museum took place at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, an appropriate venue for a conversation rife with implications for the ethics of preservation, real estate development and the architectural profession. The aim was to create an opportunity for public discussion of what has been criticized as a unilateral move by MoMA, and investigate the supposed necessity of the Folk Museum's demolition.

The conversation was presented by The Architectural League, in partnership with the Municipal Art Society and the AIA, New York Chapter. Watch the entire discussion below, featuring:

Glenn Lowry (Director of the Museum of Modern Art), Ann Temkin (The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture), Elizabeth Diller (principal of Diller Scofidio + Renfro), Reed Kroloff (director of the Cranbrook Academy...

Elizabeth Diller, MoMA discuss expansion and Folk Museum's demolition with slice of NY architectural community

2014-01-29T15:46:00-05:00

The controversial plans to demolish the American Folk Art Museum in service of MoMA's expansion rumbled along last night, at a panel discussion hosted jointly by the Architectural League, the Municipal Art Society, and the AIA's New York chapter.

Catch-up on news surrounding MoMA's expansion here:

Archinect contributors / Parsons MArch students Ayesha Ghosh and Alex Stewart attended the event, taking notes and logging thoughts. The following is their report.

* updated February 3, 2014: You can also find a video of the entire discussion, courtesy of the Architectural League, at the bottom of this post.

A Conversation on the ...

Building Faces Wrecking Ball. So Does Couples’ Friendship.

2014-01-19T17:24:00-05:00

“All of us who knew them thought this was going to be pretty much a slam dunk — that they would save the Folk Art Museum,” said Peter Wheelwright, a former chairman of the architecture program at Parsons, the New School for Design. “I knew they were capable of doing it and that, because of their friendship, that they would make a sincere, genuine, wholehearted effort.”

Christopher Hawthorne interviews Elizabeth Diller regarding MoMA plans

2014-01-16T11:42:00-05:00

"I think that the press has been too fast to reduce the conversation to heroes and villains and martyrs, and to suggest that what MoMA is doing is necessarily bad. We want to get more information out. We want to share the problem with others and invite them to really take a hard look" - Elizabeth Diller

They discuss the almost uniformly negative reaction to the announcement as well as the details of DS+R’s proposal for MoMA, which is still in an early design phase.

In response Michael Kimmelman tweeted "Her answers are deeply unsatisfying".

Editor's Picks #350

2014-01-14T13:15:00-05:00

The latest edition of ShowCase highlights CRAB Studio’s Abedian School of Architecture in Queensland, Australia.

Plus, the fourth installment in Screen/Print (Archinect’s experimentation in translation across media) features "fruity labors" from the quarterly journal MAS Context's 20th issue, Narrative.

News
Architect Magazine reported the American Folk Art Museum will be razed for a Diller Scofidio + Renfro's designed MoMA expansion.

Amelia Taylor-Hochberg Editorial Manager for Archinect, went to the trouble of gathering "a slew of responses to the proposal, both indignant and accepting, from Archinect contributors and beyond".

HotelSphinx thought the excuses/reasons given for demolition were ironic "DS+R is a firm that made a building out of fog for the Expo in Yverdon-les-Bains in 2002. Yes, fog. But aligning floor plates is too difficult? They have got to be joking me".

Meanwhile, Mason White of Lateral Office was perplexed.

"Architects revolt about 2 high-society architecture firms in...

Architects and critics bristle at DS+R's Folk Museum sacrifice

2014-01-09T18:20:00-05:00

Yesterday, DS+R announced in their proposal for MoMA's redesign that the American Folk Art Museum would have to be demolished. Backlash from the #folkMoMA community quickly arose: architects and critics called the choice callous and unsustainable, outraged not only by the Folk Art Museum's destruction but also the design that would take its place, and its impact on New York's (and DS+R's) reputation.

We've gathered a slew of responses to the proposal, both indignant and accepting, from Archinect contributors and beyond, and will be following developments closely. Here are a few of those thoughts:

From the Archinect news post, American Folk Art Museum will be razed in Diller Scofidio + Renfro's MoMA expansion:

Donna Sink: "All of DSR's previous work is tarnished by this."

Darkman: "This solidifies Rem Koolhaas as the best architect-thinker of our time, for his original MoMA proposal, "MoMA, Inc." "

thebeigecity: "As for the Folk Art Museum - it was cramped and cloying, ov...

American Folk Art Museum will be razed in Diller Scofidio + Renfro's MoMA expansion

2014-01-08T18:42:00-05:00

[Diller] had great respect for the Folk Art Museum, calling it a “bespoke” design tailored to the needs of the museum. She went through several scenarios on how to integrate the museum in the expanded footprint. [...] Adapting the Folk Art Museum building, however, would basically compromise the building’s interior beyond recognition. [...] The architects would have had to destroy the Folk Art Museum building in order to save it.

In what looks like the kiss of death for the #folkMoMA movement, Diller Scofidio + Renfro's design for MoMA's expansion will necessitate the destruction of the neighboring American Folk Art Museum, as proposed today in a MoMA press conference. The initial threat to the Folk Museum was made last spring when MoMA announced its redevelopment plans, provoking a widespread preservationist movement among architects, rallying under #folkMoMA.

To catch-up on #folkMoMA's history, see #8 in Archinect's coverage for the Top 13 Issues of 2013.

Here are some concept sketches for the new MoMA, via Architect Magazine (image credit: Diller Scofidio + Renfro).

Please Save Modernism from the Modern

2013-06-21T11:02:00-04:00

"There are certainly critical voices that doubt the building’s value. These begin with that of MoMA itself . . . While others claim the AFAM should be preserved because it’s a great Modernist building, and therefore part of the MoMA collection, rather than its campus, no one has unequivocally answered the question of why it is so. The discourse as yet remains one of opinions asserted as imperatives: I love it / I never liked it / it must be saved / tear it down."

David Heymann in his critical article explores the deeper issues at play in the American Folk Art Museum controversy. As he mentions, the stances taken for or against the AFAM are clear, however; too much attention has been paid to the object itself and not to reality that it sits empty as a vestigial cultural space. Whether or not the building will disappear is hardly as interesting as the discussion of why such a cultural icon was ever allowed to fail. Is architecture only as relevant as the people and things that it contains?

Editor's Picks #315

2013-05-14T08:00:00-04:00

News
Robin Pogrebin reported that following wide-ranging protests, the Museum of Modern Art has selected the design firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro to re-examine it’s planned expansion including whether to keep any of the existing American Folk Art Museum. Scott Gustafon was somewhat relieved "I believe that Tod Williams and Ricardo Scofidio are old friends, so this is a step in the right direction" and Lian Chikako Chang deadpanned "Pretty sure that DSR can handle staggered floorplates". Added Darkman "There is room behind the museum... you could install very gradual ramps or something. Additionally, i'd like to see the facade brought out to the sidewalk to open up the building--not sure how to do that though... ha. Or replace with semi-transparent glazing in the same pattern and shape. Would be cool to see it glow".

Bustler.net showcased Parabola Chair by Los Angeles-based architect and product designer Carlo Aiello, winner of the 2013 ICFF Studio Award. The chair will be e...

MoMA reconsiders razing of Folk Art Museum, hands decision over to newly selected architects DS+R

2013-05-09T17:12:00-04:00

AFTER impassioned protests from prominent architects, preservationists and design critics, the Museum of Modern Art said on Thursday that it would reconsider its decision to demolish its next-door neighbor, the former home of the American Folk Art Museum, to make room for an expansion.

In a board meeting on Thursday morning, the directors were told that a board committee had selected the design firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro to handle the expansion and to help determine whether to keep any of the existing structure.

On the Folk Art Museum: Save Modernism from the Modern

2013-05-07T13:20:00-04:00

The Modernism worth pursuing — worth protecting — is the one where Gregor Samsa wakes up transformed into a large insect, and ends up with an apple embedded in his carapace, which is exactly what the Folk Art Museum is to the Museum of Modern Art, right now, right where it is.

On Places, David Heymann presents an incisive critique of MoMA's decision to raze the Folk Art Museum building, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.

From a quiet beginning — "Here is why I think the American Folk Art Museum is a great Modernist building" — Heymann works his way to a pointed conclusion: "Modernism in the architecture of the Modern is just another sad Historical Revival Style, the very thing Modernism as an ideology set out so intently to destroy."

MoMA’s History of Demolishing Potential Landmarks

2013-05-03T19:50:00-04:00

MoMA’s plan can hardly be a surprise, because its entire history since 1937 is based on demolishing potential landmarks.

The Architectural League calls on MoMA to reconsider Folk Art Museum Demolition

2013-04-22T18:07:00-04:00

The Architectural League calls on the Museum of Modern Art to reconsider its decision to demolish the American Folk Art Museum. The Museum of Modern Art—the first museum with a permanent curatorial department of architecture and design—should provide more information about why it considers it necessary to tear down this significant work of contemporary architecture. The public has a substantial and legitimate interest in this decision, and the Museum of Modern Art has not yet offered a compelling justification for the cultural and environmental waste of destroying this much-admired, highly distinctive twelve-year-old building.

Annabelle Selldorf, president
Rosalie Genevro, executive director

Amale Andraos
Stella Betts
Michael Bierut
Vishaan Chakrabarti
Walter Chatham
Leslie Gill
Maxine Griffith
Frances Halsband
Hugh Hardy
Steven Holl
Wendy Evans Joseph
Rachel Judlowe
Paul Lewis
Frank Lupo
Thom Mayne
Richard Meier
Joseph Mizzi
Peter Mullan
Nat Oppenheimer
Gr...

Barry Bergdoll talks about the decision to demolish the Folk Art Museum

2013-04-17T19:09:00-04:00

Barry Bergdoll, chief curator of MoMA's architecture and design department, told AN that the decision was an administrative, rather than a curatorial one. He called the decision “painful” for architects and others who appreciate Williams and Tsein’s work, and acknowledged that museums have a responsibility to the art in their care—including architecture.

He says the building “was designed as a jewel box for folk art,” and could not reasonably be altered to fit a different collection and a different purpose.

MoMA to raze ex American Folk Art Museum building

2013-04-11T00:39:00-04:00

MoMA officials said the building’s design did not fit their plans because the opaque facade is not in keeping with the glass aesthetic of the rest of the museum.

Robin Pogrebin reported that MoMA expects to have the building demolished by the end of this year.

h/t Donna Sink over at TC, who commented "It's tragic. We need to start a thread on it and call for a boycott of the new project by all architects. If MOMA moves ahead with this I will never step foot in their museum again"...

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

Yucca Crater by Ball Nogues

2011-07-01T16:47:24-04:00

Each fall High Desert Test Sites invites artists to create experimental projects adjacent to California's Joshua Tree National Park. This year HDTS invited Ball Nogues Studio to create a structure in a remote region of the Mojave Desert. This presents a unique opportunity to make an intervention upon an unfettered landscape at a grand scale.

Tod Williams Worries That Folk Art Museum Will Be Razed Following Sale to MoMA

2011-05-12T19:26:00-04:00

Because MoMA is looking to expand, speculation is rife that the 30,000-square-foot folk museum on West 53rd St. is targeted for demolition.

Previously: MoMA to Buy American Folk Art Museum Building

MoMA to Buy American Folk Art Museum Building

2011-05-11T10:31:00-04:00

The folk art museum’s building was designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and opened in 2001. It was not clear whether it would be torn down. The folk art museum took on $32 million of debt to construct the 53rd Street building. But attendance never met expectations, and after sustaining investment losses in the financial crisis, the museum defaulted on its debt.