Eric Gibson wonders where New York’s Museum of Modern Art is going with its latest extension, seeing as Nicholas Serota’s commitment to new at Tate never came at the expense of the old.
Not 10 years after its most recent, top-down renovation and expansion, the Museum of Modern Art is building again. Last week, director Glenn D. Lowry announced the broad outlines of plans for yet another enlargement on its western end. This one will embrace three floors of a residential tower being designed by Jean Nouvel and the site of the former American Folk Art Museum, a 2001 Tod Williams and Billie Tsien-designed building that will be demolished. Clearly MoMA is a museum in a hurry. But to go where?
When the Yoshio Taniguchi-designed building opened in 2004, it looked as if Mr. Lowry's model for the new MoMA had been London's Tate Gallery. Prior to the arrival of new directors, Nicholas Serota at the Tate in 1988 and Mr. Lowry at MoMA in 1995, the two museums shared many traits. Both had storied collections: MoMA's was classic modernism—roughly from the late 1880s through the 1940s—while the Tate's was British art from 1600 to the present. Though both mounted exhibitions of contemporary art, they were prevented from engaging with the present in anything close to a full-bore fashion by institutional inertia and limitations of space.
Not 10 years after its most recent, top-down renovation and expansion, the Museum of Modern Art is building again. Last week, director Glenn D. Lowry announced the broad outlines of plans for yet another enlargement on its western end. This one will embrace three floors of a residential tower being designed by Jean Nouvel and the site of the former American Folk Art Museum, a 2001 Tod Williams and Billie Tsien-designed building that will be demolished. Clearly MoMA is a museum in a hurry. But to go where?
When the Yoshio Taniguchi-designed building opened in 2004, it looked as if Mr. Lowry's model for the new MoMA had been London's Tate Gallery. Prior to the arrival of new directors, Nicholas Serota at the Tate in 1988 and Mr. Lowry at MoMA in 1995, the two museums shared many traits. Both had storied collections: MoMA's was classic modernism—roughly from the late 1880s through the 1940s—while the Tate's was British art from 1600 to the present. Though both mounted exhibitions of contemporary art, they were prevented from engaging with the present in anything close to a full-bore fashion by institutional inertia and limitations of space.