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. — NYTimes.com
10 Comments
Wait, WHAT?! It might be torn down?!
Thanks Wall Street for screwing us from every possible angle! Enjoy those billion dollar bonuses you keep giving yourselves!
Just... wow. AFAM has always been my favorite TWBTA building, and it is seriously one of the best museums I've been in. The art matched the architecture so well. All I can say is I hope MOMA keeps the folk art angle and leaves the building as-is. If they tear it down, I don't give a damn how good the art in MoMA is, I'll never step foot in it again.
The building seriously needs landmarked.
Hey, I've actually been there! It was awesome. I think I even stole the stair detail for a studio project. I always recommend it.
i think it'd be kind of great as an event space or something..or could be a cool special exhibition space for the moma..especially if they could find a way to attach it?
i don't know that it was entirely wall street donna...as it says in the blurb..attendance never met expectations...and they were 32 million in debt to start out...not a good way to start out for an art museum.
i found the staircases kind of took up too much of the space and didn't allow for enough exhibition space...it's similar to my experience of the New Museum in NYC and the ICA in boston in that there just wasn't enough to see to make it a worthwhile museum experience...but i'm probably spoiled.
If they're going to demo it though..i want one of those panels.
the one thing that could be a problem for the MOMA is that the building is really small compared to it's neighbors... the land that it's built on is probably too valuable for a such a short building. they were originally planning on wrapping around it anyway..weren't they?
Maybe I'm being an optimist, but I find it hard to swallow that MoMA would even consider tearing down the building. If they appreciate all art forms, they would have to recognize the beauty within the existing TWBTA structure.
n_
MOMA are a bunch of fuckers. When the Folk Art Museum was being built, MOMA was doing some construction work which cracked some of the concrete on the museum. MOMA basically told Folk Art to fuck off
Jerry Saltz, who is pretty smart about art, proves himself sadly conservative about what an art museum "should" look like.
And a response, nailing him, but not hard enough IMO.
And again: many, many cultural institutions are facing severe financial problems and even closure thanks to Wall Street. We're all in a shitty financial situation thanks to those craven leeches on Wall Street.
in a completely unrelated note, the Gates Foundation has an operating budget of $50million a week.
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