DS+R's MoMA Expansion Will Demolish Folk Art Museum

In a presentation to the press at the office of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) in New York City last week, architect Liz Diller said that "after intensive study it became clear that [Tod Williams and Billie Tsien's 2001 Anerican Folk Art Museum] could not be adapted without compromising its integrity." Instead, their proposal for the latest expansion of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will demolish the Folk Art Museum that MoMA has owned since 2011, replacing it with a large "Art Bay" on the lower floors and a flexible "Gray Box" theater/gallery above. The news comes eight months after the announcement by MoMA, with some relief, that DS+R would be exploring ways of reusing the small but much admired building within MoMA's larger plans.

In a statement from MoMA director Glenn Lowry the same day as the presentation: "The plans approved today are the result of a recommendation from the architects after a diligent and thoughtful six-month study and design process that explored all options for the site. The analysis that we undertook was lengthy and rigorous, and ultimately led us to the determination that creating a new building on the site of the former American Folk Art Museum is the only way to achieve a fully integrated campus."

Not surprisingly, critics have not found much to admire in the decision nor the plans, saying: "A city that allows such a work to disappear after barely a dozen years is a city with a flawed architectural heart. A large cultural institution that cannot find a suitable use for such a building is an institution with a flawed architectural imagination." (Paul Goldberger, Vanity Fair); "The more I heard and saw [in the closed-door press conference], the sicker and sadder I got. Somewhere inside me, I heard myself saying my good-byes to MoMA. I thought, I have seen the best modern museum of my generation destroyed by madness." (Jerry Saltz, New York); and "If MoMA had treated Folk as architecturally worthy, like objects in its collection, the question of demolition couldn't have arisen." (Michael Kimmelman, New York Times, via Twitter).

Williams and Tsien issued a statement, having been briefed by Diller a week before the presentation: "This action represents a missed opportunity to find new life and purpose for a building that is meaningful to so many." Yet they end the letter (PDF link) on a positive note, saying, "As architects, we must be optimists. So we look to the future and we move on."