The Museum of Modern Art
Cultural
Location Manhattan, New York
Type Renovation
Size 630,000 Sq Ft
Date 2005
Design Architect: Yoshio Taniguchi
Project Architect: KPF Architects
The MoMA has been, since its inception, one of the most comprehensive and panoramic views into modern art. With a total collection totaling well over 4 million individual pieces of art and an equally extensive Library and Archives as well as millions of visitors from all over the world, it is no surprise that the museum recently undertook the complete rebuilding and renovation of its main building with enhanced and expanded facilities.
The changes to both the interior and exterior were comprehensive; the gallery spaces were transformed to become block wide, column-free, flexible spaces, with the capacity to bring in monumental art through a removable wall. Visually, the open galleries, glass and stone curtain walls, skylights, and innovative lighting provide shifting perspectives and optical surprises allowing the architecture to live up to the museum’s name.
Other highlights of the new building including a grand staircase in the lobby, a 110-foot ceiling in the main atrium surrounded by galleries, and the restored view of both the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden and the surrounding city from the interior of the museum.
Meant to be a model of Manhattan itself, the new MoMA was not only about containing the museum’s growing collections but also about making a home for an ongoing argument about modern art linking the old and the new.
