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...
— the New York Times
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 walls, like in the DS+R-designed Broad Museum in LA, to give curators greater flexibility.
"This is not a heroic ‘Ta-da!'" Elizabeth Diller told the Times. "It's careful...surgical."
The redesign will also make use of a "warmer" palette, to mitigate current perceptions of the museum as cold and "austere."
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6 Comments
OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!!!
Donna, don't sound so excited.
"Gone, too, will be the public, as this space has quickly become the Wunderkammer for the 1%."
b3tadine[sutures]
I saw this on the Times website and rushed to Archinect just to see Donna's response if they had also posted this story. It did not disappoint.
Aw HotelSphinx thanks for thinking of me! We discuss this on the podcast (recorded tonight, will be released tomorrow) and the above response really is pretty much all I have to say. But I say a few things about the new BAMPFA project, too.
So a warmer pallate and no art bay. Looks like as close to an "oops" as they will admit.
The tower does look great, but still no real reason to take down Folk Art museum other than nobody within had the courage to stand up to it...
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