MoMA Defends Folk Art Teardown

World-Architects was in attendance on Tuesday 28 January at the packed New York Society for Ethical Culture for "A Conversation on the Museum of Modern Art’s Plan for Expansion." The event was jointly organized by the Architectural League of New York, the Municipal Art Society and the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter in response to preliminary designs by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) for the newest expansion of MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art. DS+R took the commission with the hope of saving the old American Folk Art Museum, which MoMA purchased in 2011, but their initial design unveiled earlier this month proposed demolishing the building, a decision that sparked outrage among architects and other admirers of the building.

The event allowed MoMA director Glenn Lowry and DS+R partner Elizabeth Diller to explain respectively their goals in the expansion and how they came to the decision to raze the much admired Folk Art building designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. Diller's presentation made clear how fulfilling MoMA's goals of more gallery space and improved circulation adversely affected the 12-year old neighbor so much it would be left as "a monster of a building." Since the building's "integrity" would be destroyed, the architects proposed tearing it down and placing an "art bay" and "gray box theater" in its place, part of a network of galleries and circulation that would link the current MoMA to new galleries at the base of a planned tower designed by Jean Nouvel for developer Hines.

A panel made up of moderator Reed Kroloff (Cranbrook), Cathleen McGuigan (Architectural Record), Jorge Otero-Pailos (Columbia GSAPP), Nicolai Ouroussoff (former New York Times critic), Stephen Rustow (Museoplan), and Karen Stein (independent architectural advisor) took to the stage following Diller's presentation. The general consensus among the panel was that MoMA was asking the wrong questions – asking for more gallery space and improved circulation rather than asking how the new building could be incorporated into their ever-expanding museum, much as the original MoMA building has been preserved, if dramatically maligned, over the years.

Alas, at the end of the night, Lowry flatly stated that "our decision has been made," killing the hopes of anybody on the panel or in the audience that optimistically believed the evening would be the start of a discussion that could change the fate of the Folk Art building. Instead, demolition of the building could start as soon as this June.