[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.
— Architect Magazing
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).
54 Comments
This is the worst news on the architecture world in decades. What a debacle. What a shame.
FOLK Moma!
the woman in the yellow dress is tweeting about how much better the rendering of the Folk Art Museum was than the rendering she finds herself in now.
But vado it's got a big rotating garage door! No one has *ever* seen anything like that before!
i like michael kimmelman's tweet:
Michael Kimmelman @kimmelman 31m
If MoMA had treated Folk as architecturally worthy, like objects in its collection, the question of demolition couldn't have arisen.
Excellent tweet. Like I said when this issue first arose, MOMA has shown that they don't take their role as keeper of material culture seriously. If I were an artist with something in their collection I'd be worried for its safety.
looks banal and corporate perfect for USA
Is this really where we're at now: Versailles Hall of Mirrors 2.0 ?
Perhaps whatever Apple does is good enough for all. It's beside the point; the point is the destruction of a landmark. Put the rescued facade in the Garden ? Make it the rear wall of a space facing 53rd St ?
Reusing the tombasil panels in some other location is like displaying the skulls of your slaughtered enemies on pikes. Would MOMA slice a Matisse into strips and hang them outside like banners? Gross.
boo!
I designed SHOPPING MALLS that looked better then that. Its really too bad they are getting rid the Folk Art Museum
Seems that architecture isn't art after all.
Jerry Saltz's take on it is good. Sad, but good.
I've spent a lot of time, on Archinect and other places, defending against this notion that ALL architects care about is their own big egos. In this situation it's hard to not consider the possibility that DSR's own ego couldn't stand to have to operate in the same field as TWBTA's (clearly superior) building. At LIncoln Center DSR managed to build something so quiet that it improves the overall function and feel of the place yet in no way detracts from the original architecture. It's masterful. But for some reason at FAM they come in like the rabid gorilla in the china shop and destroy something of amazing beauty.
DSR really has no say in this. They are simply following the orders of the eltite hiding beehind the institutional facade of Moma. Is it really any wonder that these globalitst assholes would destroy a folk art museusm, especially an American fok art msuem?
What a shame. The folk museum could have been one of those long standing icons for hundreds of years to come. In the year 2500 arch historians will regard the new building as a symbol of the throw away culture of late 20th early 21st century. It will always have negative connotations. I still find it hard to believe that the an art institution is the force behind this destruction.
There's something ironic in the offense taken by Billie Tsien and Todd Williams after their involvement with the dislocation of the Barnes collection.... something about the shoe being on the other foot.
As for the Folk Art Museum - it was cramped and cloying, overly sentimental and specialized. Yes, the new addition is boring but its by DS+R so there will be some LED lights or video screens or transgressive performance space or single surfaces or bad formalism or some other techy knick knacks tacked on - don't worry, it will all be ok and nothing more.
I officially think New York sucks now, neo-liberal vortex that produces mediocre architecture and terribly overrated, first that crappy freedom tower and this MOMA crap. Happy I never moved there. If DSR had any integrity they would just simply not do that project.
London, Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona, Sao-Paulo, even Miami are far more interesting cities.
The more I look at that project the more depressed I get. I promise I do not want to go to New York and if I do I will not go to the MOMA. Rather spend my money elsewhere.
I'm glad I moved out of NY when I did. It lost its soul around the late 90s. I miss the old drug infested shit hole ny of my youth. You can't even tell someone to go fuck themselves anymore without offending the yuppy hipster assholes. That used to be a common phrase like "thank you".
A few questions:
1) How much did DS+R get paid extra for deflecting attention? And where are those renderings of their "attempts" at saving the Folk Art Museum?
2) Has computer rendering sucked all life out of architecture?
3) Is MoMA trying to be the Apple Store? (Actually, the Apple Store is Beaux Arts compared with this)?
4) Whatever happened to buildings? Now its all talk about "openness" and "transparency". What happens when everything is open and you have nothing else to look at? Are we actually just feeding off of the classic architecture from the heyday (1890-1940?).
5) Whatever happened to the robust, material modernism of Williams and Tsien, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Aalto, etc. etc.
6) I'm surprised that DS+R wasn't able to pulls something off, like they did at Lincoln Center. This may add $ to their bank but will tarnish their reputation among architects.
7) So much for the power of social media #folkart.
The grime was NY. It was its character. The folk art building had some of that brutalness that was fitting. The dsr project is sterile.
Generally speaking, Ny is a sad sterile shell of what it once was. Its a plastic surgery victim that removed her charming idiosyncratic features to achieve some phony image of perfection and ended up losing her unique beauty and looking like all the other plastic people.
All good questions, Darkman. All of DSR's previous work is tarnished by this.
Whatever happened to the robust, material modernism of Williams and Tsien, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Aalto, etc. etc.- They're in the permanent collection with models and drawings and curatorial blurbs on the importance of their art. Well, except Tod and Billie.
9) Why are there so many asians in the renderings?
MoMA has become "middlebrow, megachurch, infotainment" just like TED.
So long gone are the revolutionary beginnings of Philip Johnson.
These anti-MoMA/anti-NYC/anti-DSR comments too far over the top to be taken seriously.
The MoMA should reuse or relocate the FM building, but the ridiculous hyperbole being thrown around is really not helping to make a case for it.
You cannot possibly critique the destruction of this building without critiquing the context that allows it. Hyperbole my ass. NY is a gentrified sterile place compared to the old NY I loved.
This all further proves my position true that architecture should be treated as an art. So long as we treat it as a professional service we will be used as cogs that create structures to serve the agenda of the elite. Our voices will be nullified. The essence of these places will be viewed as an inconvenient after affect. Architecture is not purely utilitarian.
handsumcash is right. DSR was merely a cog. They were hired to give credibility to a decision that was made by a Board. It happens all the time. I don't agree with the decision, but to blame DSR is misguided.
It is fascinating to hear Liz Diller become the voice of the MoMA. DSR is not a cog, they are a well-payed henchmen/women.
This isn't hyperbole. The reason the building is significant is architectural--its specific context/experience in the middle of midtown. What made the building's context was that little approach/park behind the CBS building, and its location next to the MoMA, the contrast between the two. It's a symbol of how hallow brand names without any texture are expanding, whether its MoMA, or Home Depot. The Folk Art Museum represents a more textural modernism than the flat sensory deprivation chambers of MoMA.
This is especially interesting given the other controversy last year was women in architecture. Now a woman is playing a decisively negative role here.
The anit-nyc might be a bit of hyperbole but, make no mistake, the anti-moma & anti diller-scodifo sentiments are real.
Believe it or not, theer was a time when moma felt daring and even anti-establishment. yeah, yeah, it's always been rich people financing but it used to feel more like a passion project. philip johnson (he of the ultimate insider yet outsider status) really personified this. And even as recent as just before the big renovation in 2002? there were still hints of its modest origins. But post-renovation there should be no mistake. Moma is an instituion with a capitol I. Just another mass tourist destination. Granted it plays applebees to Disney's mcodonalds, but it is still the same corporate bullshit.
Cog or henchmen, same difference. Diller scofidyo are sellouts at this point.
ps. for the record, I've only set foot in the Moma once since the renovation 10 years ago (despite being a somewhat regular visitor before that). I won't be back.
DSR is too sophisticated a firm to be a cog. If they came to the confusion that MOMA's program couldn't be accomplished while saving the FAM they could have walked away from the project. They chose not to.
I suspect that DSR and Glenn Lowry disagree with people like Donna Sink about the merit of what TWBTA created with the Folk Art Museum. In that context, they are neither cogs nor sell-outs. They're only asserting their view of what is the appropriate move forward.
Its so interesting that TWBTA was in a similar position with the Barnes Foundation project.
Nice reminder why I started doing painting, no beauty left there. No wish for innovation either, this is Lego thinking at it's vorse. No wonder the visions are lost but on the other hand, this is what you liked better.
whoops ...
sorry . .. .
pardon me, sorry, excuse me . . . .
uh, hello!
which part of the barnes did twbta help tear down?
ok, thanks. gotta go, bye!
The Barnes isn't the FAM. The Barnes is destroyed already, the FAM isn't.
In other words, davvid, try to keep the focus on the battle at hand. Do YOU think the FAM is disposable building of no merit? Do you think any building is worth saving ever?
For anyone that is interested our twitter has been buzzing with conversation:
https://twitter.com/FolkMoMA
Right now we are also asking people to suggest ideas on what type of direct actions we can take next. Join and help us.
Christopher Hawthorne nails it on every level. I wanted to quote from the article but every single sentence was quote-worthy.
I hate to butt into what seems like a family squabble, but I have to agree with davvid. Many architects have been in this position where they get what would be a great commission where it not for the loss of a beloved landmark. I wonder what architects thought when they tore down Penn Station, a truly loved public building. Or when Robert Moses ripped the heart out of the Bronx with the cross Bronx expressway destroying whole communities in the process. I suspect not much.
Here they are tearing down a jewel box that most of the public wouldn't notice if they'd run into its hammered copper facade. As Donna said in the other post,
"But now it hurts even more because it feels like betrayal by one of our own"
Who is "one of our own" and what's the entry fee to get into the club? (rhetorical) All the hate on DSR seems like bullshit since they are doing a job that any architect would love to have. It's the museum that made the decision to demo the Folk Museum, not DSR. That being said, I do feel sorry for those who will miss this building. As a lover of traditional buildings, looking over the urban renewal decades is like looking at a tragedy that wouldn't end. Even if this is a building that only the establishment could love, it's love none the less and knowing what this heartbreak feels like, I'm sorry to see it. For better or for worse, NYC has always been a money first city, so what money giveith, money can takeith away. My condolences.
But Thayer, MOMA brought in DSR after the initial backlash as a way to specifically reconsider whether the FAM could be saved. DSR decided it could not: it was their decision, or their lack of design ability, that led to the now-current plan to demolish it.
As Alexandra Lange (who's been awesome on this topic) says here, TWBTA could have said no to the Barnes commission too - but they took the commission after the decision had been made to move the collection. A new building was going to be built no matter what architect was selected.
I'm an architect. So is TWBTA. So is DSR. So this feels like a betrayal by one of our own, yes.
Donna, I think its more complicated than you are making it seem. The FAM building is an incredibly flawed building with some lovely features that are worth saving or relocating. The facade related nicely to folk art although it severely limited the possibility of reuse. The location was a terrible idea. Obviously there are many buildings worth saving but its up to the architects and the clients to plan well for the future - at least for 15 years into the future.
And sorry, but it's also one more example, ever more common, of something small, personal, hand-crafted, and idiosyncratic being mowed over and destroyed by something huge, soulless, greedy, and bland. Like what happened to Doug Johnson and every other small designer ripped off by Anthropologie and their ilk. Like what happened to Times Square.
Oh god 15 years big fucking whoop. If I'm designing for a 15-year life span then I'm a shitty fucking architect (unless I'm doing buildings out of paper or something intended to gracefully decompose). In most cases buildings should be something we'd be proud for our grandkids to see.
MOMA is looking to the next two fiscal quarters gate receipts, that's it. FAM is only flawed as a place to look at art by a population whose deepest understanding of art is that is it should be something colorful on a big white wall, preferably matching the couch.
It sounds like you're looking for an outlet for your (justifiable) anger, but picking on this firm seems like a scapegoat. Are you sure that the decision wasn't pre-ordained? In other words, the program Moma gave them to assess might have been a size 12 foot for a size 9 shoe. I'm not going to hate on the MOMA either because they are as corporate as any other except for their smartly tailored suit and fine manners.
You could be right about DSR though, I have no idea. Maybe inter-firm jealousy, competitiveness, or simple self interest, nothing we haven't seen before. Moma wants the money form a condo tower but get push back from "their own" (modernist elites), so they get DSR for a fig leaf. New York's world famous skyline has been propelled by money since the Dutch landed, but at this point more glass boxes are in fact sterilizing its unique character as well as many other cities around the world. That's not an issue with our capitalist culture but ironically with the architectural culture that Moma did more to promote than almost any other institution. Out with the old and in with the new, and fuck culture. I hope you guys win.
Two twitter conversations on the topic that Donna and Thayer are debating that may be helpful:
with Hawthorne himself: https://twitter.com/abernheimer/status/421457149886070784
and among some old school 'necters: https://twitter.com/sevensixfive/status/421134395341549568
"If I'm designing for a 15-year life span then I'm a shitty fucking architect"
Exactly.
Donna, did FAM (client + architect) plan for 15 years into the future?
thayer stop talking and leave russia already
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