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The New Museum of Contemporary Art

SANAA

Eoin Moriarty, Niall McInerney, Conor Lyons

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Introduction

The original New Museum of Contemporary Art was founded in 1977

by a woman called Marcia Tucker. It was situated in West Village and

to this day remains the only museum in New York dealing with

exclusively contemporary art. It remained here for 6 years until it

moved to a rented building in Soho. Plans for the new development

began in 1999, but it was a long process and ground was not broken

until 2005. The museum owners were looking for an architect who

would create a surprising and innovative building, not trophy

architecture, but a contribution to the architecture of the city thatcreated good spaces for art.

The site for the ambitious project was to be located in the Bowery,

more specifically at a parking lot at the head of Prince Street. It is at

the cross-roads of many exciting neighbourhoods, and the Bowery is

said to have been the home of the creative community of New York.

The Bowery had become quite a rough and run down area, asneighbourhoods around it were changing and growing all the time.

This project was as much about creating a building where artists and

public could flock to as it was an attempt to rejuvenate the area in its

entirety.

After a tedious worldwide selection, they eventually settled on the

design presented by SANAA as it succeeded in bringing the site, the

New Museums mission and the program into alignment. They

wanted to establish a distinct relationship between the museum, the

building, the Bowery Street and the City of New York. Their design

was a stack of rectilinear boxes shifted off a central core. Where the

boxes shifted, light was let in, providing lightness and openness to

the whole shifting building. It was to be clad in an aluminium mesh,

turning the entire structure into a play of light and reflection. The

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building itself creates a beautiful relationship with the surrounding

area through the theme of change. The Bowery and New York itself is

an ever changing environment and the buildings change from box to

box as they shift backward and forwards is in a sense a physical

symbol of this change. It is an eye-catching structure from all angles,

but also in quite inviting and not overwhelming.

During the time of construction between 2005 and 2007, the Bowery

was already changing for the better. There was a new hotel opened,

as well as a whole foods supermarket and a branch of Chase

Manhattan Bank. Several other New York galleries have taken up inlofts nearby. It seems that SANAA have created a landmark building

for the artistic community. Over 100,000 people passed through the

doors within the first two months of opening. The opening of this

museum has focused global attention on this area, and it seems to

be flourishing because of it.

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