After a 20-year run as the launching pad for a generation of aspiring architects and young designers, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and MoMA PS1-sponsored Young Architects Program (YAP) will be going on hiatus for at least one year.
Martino Stierli, Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA, told The Architect's Newspaper, "Following the 20th anniversary of the Young Architects Program, MoMA and MoMA PS1 have decided to place the program on a one-year hiatus. We remain deeply committed to supporting and recognizing emerging architectural talent."
In the statement, Stierli added, “We’ve already started to use the hiatus to bring together a diverse group of influential scholars and professionals, experimental architects and designers, and previous YAP winners to assess the program’s impact for the past two decades, explore its potential, and strategically chart its future. We look forward to sharing more news as we move along in this process.”
The shift follows the departure of MoMA PS1 Director Klaus Biesenback for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2018.
YAP was inaugurated in 1998 with a design created by Vienna-based artist group Gelatin; The following year architect Phillip Johnson created the second pavilion in the PS1 courtyard. Over the ensuing two decades, a who's-who of some of the now-most established and celebrated architectural and design firms used YAP as a way of legitimizing their nascent practices, including: SHoP (2000), Ball-Nogues (2007), WORKac (2008), MOS (2009), SO-IL (2010), HWKN (2012), Andrés Jaque / Office for Political Innovation (2015), and others.
Over the years, YAP has expanded into the international context with program branches in Rome, Santiago, Istanbul, and Seoul coming online. It is unclear whether those programs are also on hiatus.
4 Comments
The PS1 program is a major resource drain on young firms. Too many times they resort to free or below-market labor from students to complete the project or risk bankruptcy.
Fancy-pants architecture like this is best done by trust funders whose firms don't really need to make money.
I laughed out out loud when I saw this because on my first visit to PS1 this summer I was shocked as to how poorly things are run over there and thought that they seriously needed to reconsider their operations. Suspicions confirmed. I'm surprised they weren't shut down by the Fire Marshall due to absurd pinch points and not meeting minimum egress requirements considering how they clearly jam more people into the space by overselling beyond their standard occupancy for their Warm Up event series. On top of that, despite it's recent reopening in after a crane infamously obstructed it's oculus, the James Turrell Skyspace was in such poor condition from water damage that there were clear cracks in the ceiling—not exactly something I expect from MOMA. Don't even get me started on the Y.A.P. Program itself. Competition culture needs to change as a whole in architecture, and we're already at critical mass with the experience economy, so I hope MOMA does a reset on PS1 and also stops pretending that they're an event promoter while they're at it.
Good riddance. Competition culture is just a parade of the wealthy and does nothing to serve or legitimize the profession.
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