Expansion of the New Museum in New York

About

The expansion of the New Mueum in Manhattan, which reopens to the public on 21 March, engages in an architectural dialogue with SANAA’s building for the institution, inaugurated in 2007. Designed by OMA's New York office under the direction of Shohei Shigematsu, in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, the intervention does not seek to mimic, but rather to construct a relationship of controlled contrast between two independent but connected volumes. It also doubles the floor area of the contemporary art museum to approximately 11,000 m². The project stems from a unique challenge: to expand a contemporary work of architecture without diluting its identity. In contrast with the stacked boxes of the SANAA building, the new piece takes on a faceted and folded geometry that redefines the museum's presence in the Bowery. At ground level, the most significant gesture is the setback at the corner of Prince Street, creating a public plaza that acts as an open threshold. A second setback at the top of the building allows the facade to narrow towards a central point and open up terraces. A central axis runs between the two buildings, organizing circulation. An atrium staircase, with its angular design, vertically connects the levels and reinforces the shared experience of the space. At the same time, the galleries are linked horizontally across several floors, with heights that allow as much for large-scale continuous exhibitions as for independent configurations, ensuring curatorial flexibility.