This week, the New Museum announced plans for a second building that will nearly double the institution’s footprint to 115,277 square feet at 235 Bowery on the Lower East Side. The structure, designed by OMA’s Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, will rise 174 feet between Prince Street and Stanton Street. At seven stories high, the new development will dedicate three floors to gallery space, along with a cafe, bookstore, offices, community and education programs, art storage, and terraces concealed in triangular cutouts on the top three levels.
The $63 million expansion will replace an existing structure next door to the museum. Renderings reveal an angular, partially transparent façade that complements the opaque, boxy bulk of New Museum’s current home, which was designed by SANAA and completed in 2007. This new structure will be OMA’s first public building in New York City. As YIMBY reported a while back, the New Museum considered removing the lot walls of the current design to connect the two sites. The addition’s floors will align with those of the existing building, making for a natural transition between the two.
New Museum at 235 Bowery, Rendering via OMA Instagram
New Museum at 235 Bowery, Rendering via OMA Instagram
“Our new building establishes its own distinct identity, yet it is highly connected to the existing museum,” said OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu. “The new New Museum will be a synergistic pair working spatially and programmatically in tandem, offering a repertoire of spaces to match the institution’s curatorial ambitions and diverse programs. A counterpart to the existing tower’s verticality and solidity, the new building will expand the galleries horizontally and reveal the vertical circulation through a transparent facade. We wanted to create a highly public face—starting from the exterior plaza and atrium stair to terraced multipurpose rooms at the top—that will be a conduit of art and activities that provides an openness to engage Bowery and the city beyond.”
Demolition plans were filed last month, and groundbreaking is scheduled to begin in 2020. The New Museum will remain operational during the majority of the construction, which is expect to be completed by 2022.
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Wow, what a truly wonderful addition that compliments the existing building while being its own new work of art.
that will never look like the rendering