Arch@the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York

New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, by Riyue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA)
Interior view of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, by Riyue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA)

Interior view of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, by Riyue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA)

Interior view of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, by Riyue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA)

Interior view (bathroom) of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, by Riyue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA)

Exterior view (balcony) of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, by Riyue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA)

It isn't often that an art museum has anything in common with a trash can. In fact, the new New Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened last Saturday in downtown Manhattan, just might be the only museum to be clad in the same wire mesh as its home city's refuse receptacles. And that, oddly enough, happens to be a great thing.
When the design for the New Museum was unveiled three years ago, its structure - a series of what looked like pushed-together matchboxes clad in what looked then like an impossible-to-get silver mesh - looked delightful, but completely impossible (not to mention improbable, given its location on the historically gritty Bowery).

New York changes fast, though, and what seemed so unlikely so recently - a fine art museum on a street known for its homeless shelters - now makes sense. It doesn't hurt that a hip boutique hotel has opened down the street, or that the gentrifier's kiss of finality, a Whole Foods, has opened down the block, but it also doesn't hurt that, architecturally, the New Museum just works.

The building, designed by Riyue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima (SANAA) starts at a small enough scale that even the biggest of the floating boxes, the ground floor atrium, keeps a visitor feeling like this is just small enough of a museum to see on a spin through downtown.

It's not a gigantic commitment, like uptown's MoMA and Met, but there's enough change as you go up to keep it interesting. And, if by chance the art doesn't satisfy (the opening show is a mix), there's always the glass house of a top floor overlooking downtown Manhattan, a perfect vantage point from which to see the next big thing.

For now, though, the New Museum is it.
NFORMATION

Website
http://www.newmuseum.org/

Telephone
1.212 219 1222

Address
New Museum
235 Bowery
New York
NY 10002

@Source: 3 December 2007 http://www.wallpaper.com/architecture/new-museum-new-york/1935 / All photos by Dean Kaufman