The ongoing rennovation and expansion of the Museum of Modern Art will culminate in its opening on Monday October 21, 2019.
The expansion was designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DSR), in collaboration with Gensler and adds more than 40,000 square feet of gallery spaces allowing the museum to exhibit a larger collection of works. The project also aims to provide visitors with a more welcoming and comfortable and also seeks to better connect the Museum to the urban fabric of midtown Manhattan.
The Studio in the heart of the Museum will feature live programming and performances that will explore histories of modern art and the current cultural moment. Up on the second-floor, a Creativity Lab for education will invite visitors to connect with art that explores new ideas about the present, past, and future. And ground-level galleries, which will be free and open to the public will help connect the Museum to the city and bring its exhibits to people on the streets of midtown Manhattan.
the weird thing about MOMA is that it has not been housed in a particularly contemporary building for quite some time even though it is constantly rebuilt and added to. Not since the ED Stone building, really. Its a safe place, modern but not in the scary way it could be. Folk art was maybe too dangerous to that sensibility. requires thinking and having feelings and such. It is a pity that bit of texture was smoothed over so bluntly.
All 15 Comments
cue donna in 3..2..1...
Let me help: OH MY GOD IS THAT BRAD PITT?!
It's not about Brad, it's about #FolkMOMA and the absolute tragedy of the destruction of the brilliant beautiful humane quirky gorgeous handmade Folk Art Museum to be replaced by this gleaming boring crap. The stair makes its all the worse because they were obviously trying to do something super cool and cerebral but it just falls flat in comparison to the bloody raw beauty of the Folk Art stair.
(I was just bat-signaling)
Looks like it's lacking a soul, but as a box in which to store art it looks like it checks all the requirements.
Welcome to our "corporate clean lines."
Welcome to MOMA Inc.
This is the most boring Apple Store yet...
You beat me to it. I was going to ask why MoMA is selling Apple computers now.
0_0
https://www.archdaily.com/9265...
As technologically interesting as it is, and as cleanly as it was built, I hate this detail.
I do too, Sneaky. It's horrid.
"I like it! Now where do I go for my penectomy?"
I mean seriously: this thing is heartbreakingly boring.
The museum store is featured prominently, from within and without. Time was, it was tucked away so as not to distract.
But look at what they're selling now:
https://store.moma.org
It's like an upscale Ikea.
If I could Like this comment I would. Upscale IKEA
is perfect. And the direction all of NYC is heading, it seems.
Economics in action. MOMA isn’t about art, it’s about money. Just like everything else.
the weird thing about MOMA is that it has not been housed in a particularly contemporary building for quite some time even though it is constantly rebuilt and added to. Not since the ED Stone building, really. Its a safe place, modern but not in the scary way it could be. Folk art was maybe too dangerous to that sensibility. requires thinking and having feelings and such. It is a pity that bit of texture was smoothed over so bluntly.
they have very consistently represented a design-by-committee approach to expansion. i'd be afraid to work with them actually, they obviously have the power to bring any architect down to mediocrity.
Well said, Will! Folk Art Museum was definitely an emotionally dangerous building! In the best, challenging way.
It looks more Gensler than DSR
Two comments:
1. As much as some people idolize the Folk Art Museum, it was an architectural debacle to the institution it housed. The building contained only a few thousand square feet of usable gallery space and lacked a sufficient trustee network and membership to sustain itself. MoMA did not kill the Folk Art Museum, lack of membership and visitorship did. This is an issue of a billionaire architect imposing their detailing obsessions on an ill-prepared institution.
2. The expansion work of the MoMA is not heroic, it is more like an Aalto project, per an article on Shigeru Ban "Ban learned about Aalto from books, which made his stature difficult to comprehend. You can understand some architects’ work through pictures, but Aalto’s needed to be experienced: “His work is about context — the environment, the local community, the cultural background,” Ban told Design Build Network in 2007. “He proves that you can design unique, sculptural buildings that clients will want and still be in context, that you can reflect the surroundings, use natural materials such as wood and brick and experiment with new methods of design.”" It is not something easily captured by a few photos. It exhumes and removes to reveal experience as much as it constructs new experiences.
Ugh, the lack of depth on point one, makes the rest tl/dr.
Exactly, beta. Point o e is tripe. The architectural design of the building didn’t cause the internal structural issues of the Folk Art Museum as an institution. But related: Glen Lowry breathing down their necks to acquire that land definitely hastened their decision to let the building go. And also related: no words written or spoken about the Folk Art Museum will save the DSR MOMA from being unrelentingly uninspiring boring crap.
You're accusing TW/BT of failing the client. Not only that but failing the client due to selfish obsessions. Got any evidence to back up that rather large accusation? The building being torn down proves nothing.
Are you saying the architects of the Folk Art Museum - Tsien and Williams - are billionaires?
Todd Williams is heir to the Sherwin Williams Paint fortune and regularly will only work on a project if it accepts a minimum $800/sf budget.(that's for general projects, museums tend to be significantly more).
Oh my goodness now it gets personal and we start to see Mod Man get testy! Do you work at DSR, mod man? PM for the MOMA project, perhaps?
Not Testy at all LB. Its reality. And yes I did work for DSR and yes I was a PA on the MoMA project and yes I saw everything first hand. And I do like Tod and Billie's work and have visited their office many times and had friends work with them, but I'm also growing tired of the delusions that people base their realities on. Like MoMA or hate it, experience something before critiquing, read before commenting, understand the complexities before casting your opinion. BTW, the Folk Art Museum still exists. The building wasn't the institution, the building failed, the institution didn't. Sadly this is the reality of architecture, sometimes a great piece of architecture is a bad building for the institution it was built for. Frankly, it would have made an incredible house for a billionaire art collector.... https://folkartmuseum.org/
i'm just fascinated by the suggestion TW+BT are rich, if you aren't just trolling. She gave a very touching presentation about living in the tiny one-room home they designed in NY years ago and it totally changes the perspective on that if it was an intentional asceticism not just necessity.
yeah, sorry to bear bad news, but this is their house.
http://twbta.com/work/new-york-city-townhouse
It’s common knowledge that Tod Williams cones from wealth. He was a student at Cranbrook, and the Natatorium there came about because of his connection to the school. IOW, the Natatorium is the result of insider relationships. The Natatorium is also a fucking brilliant, gorgeous, delightful work of architecture. Nepotism can’t buy
talent . And PS $800/sf isn’t outrageously high for what cultural institutions want these days? How much is Zumthor’s LACMA
Ugh damn phone typing. ....budgeted to cost? For that matter, how much was DSR’s MOMA? The money thrown at these institutions is obscene. Tearing a masterpiece one of them down to replace it with overpriced shiny nothingness is even more obscene.
Hi lb, actually the AMFA was $32M for 30,000sf, so about $1200/SF. But in the end, there was only about 4,000-5,000sf of gallery space, as the rest was circulation, mech, lobby, offices and a lower level small auditorium. And yes, the money thrown at cultural institutions is obscene, much like the amount of money thrown at luxury condominiums and developments like Hudson Yards. It is appropriate to critique the money spent on architecture and what the sources of that money are. This is a huge question in architecture. Sadly, the architecture critics are failing in this regard, I personally the believe we need to change the way we speak about architecture to actually speak to the forces shaping our cities in the current moment.
Good to know about TWs family weath, Mod Man. Seems that the ones that can do "real" architecture need to be born into money.
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17992141819119921/?hl=en
Mod man - I'm going to weigh in here (as my firm name avatar, you're welcome to look at my credentials: I spent 16 years at TWBTA and was the asst project architect on the Folk Art Museum). Not sure why so many people need to be anonymous here. I feel the need to weigh in to correct you on a few things because I'm sure you wouldn't want to be known for spreading falsehoods.
(1) Tod Williams is not the heir to the Sherwin Williams Fortune.
(2) The link to the house you included is not, in fact, their "house" but is a residential client of TWBTA who (ironically) is the former chairman of the MoMA board of trustees who also gave the money for the "sliver" of the new MoMA that now exists where the Folk Art Museum used to be. Their name is on the glass below the new staircase.
(3) The Folk Art Museum construction cost in 1999 (when it was bid) was $17.4 million or $600/SF. Having worked there, the firm has never given a "minimum" budget for working. If you have worked in other serious firms, you would know that's not how it works. Clients matter, locations vary, and programs/ideas vary.
(4) The Building didn't fail, the institution's trustee leadership did. They saddled the building with a massive debt for a relatively small sum of money, the board ran into challenges internally (READ: chairman went to jail for fraud), the building opened two months after 9/11 in a recession era New York, had a challenging mission to get people to be interested in a relatively obscure art form, and suffered under scaffolding for nearly two years as MoMA was being constructed.
(5) And finally, the building (like all buildings) of course had weaknesses but as a whole it was a relevant and bespoke reflection of the institution and collection it housed. It was not MoMA and stood apart from it in a conscious, idiosyncratic and wonderful way. I've done a number of Museums and one of the great joys is watching the educators and curators within the first years learn how to use the building and, in some ways, bend the building to their needs in interesting ways. The running of the building was solvent after five years of opening thanks to the tireless efforts of their staff but could never get out from under the debt the trustees saddled on the building. Now it's a staircase and a giant empty gallery looking out on Saarineens wonderful Blackrock tower.
In closing, MoMA should never be forgiven for, as a cultural institution that purportedly supports Modernity, the crime of removing the Folk Art Museum. However, it is still a relevant and important institution with a remarkable voice in art, design, film, and many other mediums. I went this weekend, MoMA is not a building, it's an urban plan with plazas, shops, coffee bars, and galleries. I may be letting they / Gensler / DSR off the hook here- but it seems hard to judge it as a building in the traditional way, it (like the MET) has organically and aggressively grown and is a collage. I feel the new galleries and spaces work much better, are better proportioned, and the art has never looked better. I saw some amazing new work on the second and third floors. The circulation is much better and the generous views into the city is quite welcome. #FolkMoMA
thanks for the thorough follow up. It's interesting to compare architects' fondness for AFMA to the general criticism of the Guggenheim Bilbao, but in concept both were institutions where the building was more remarkable than the art. MoMA for all it's clumsiness is just about the art and art-consumerism complex.
Hey, studiomodh, thanks for that insider take, it's measured, and manages to take the edge off some of the feelings that many of us, not involved with TWBTA, have about the building and their work. Your dispelling of some of the bullshit rumors is, while not warranted, definitely puts things in perspective. They are perhaps one of my favorite couples in practice today.
Thanks, studiomodh! You are far more generous than I in visiting the MOMA with a fair analysis. I won't even go.
http://twbta.com/work/new-york-city-townhouse
BREAKING NEWS: Successful architect couple have a faboolous home, in NYC, designed by a faboolous architect couple.
It makes for an elating circus atmosphere, hospitable to audiences only cursorily versed in art history. Popular engagement has become a necessary face, or fate, of any current art-making that isn’t adjudicated by a plutocratic market. Without it, contemporary art is a buyers’ club.
Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker
"It" refers to a recent installation. I'm skeptical—MOMA is now drawing 3m—but he's implying museums need to have mass appeal to be successful. Hard to believe mere status of numbers and attention isn't coming into play as well. Here, as elsewhere, we see what museums have become in our culture, pop venues, in which case the DS+R box is an adequate representation of that culture and a neutral and somewhat classy container.
Over a century since Cubism and Dada, since the Armory Show shocked and enraged. Not MOMA but the art it contains should give pause and lead to cultural reflection about where we've been and where we're going. This would be a problematic discussion and I won't come up with anything good, but I miss the days when we found modern art of whatever stripe challenging and difficult, when it offended, when it was the butt of New Yorker cartoons, when appreciation required serious reflection and self-examination. I'm probably off, but it seems like now it is just something we absorb without being changed in any significant way. It's just "interesting."
Similar reflection in architecture would be in order. It was MOMA, after all, who presented and championed modern architecture, back in '32.
https://www.moma.org/documents...
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.