Letter from the Director of MOMA BUILDS Throughout its history,
The Museum of Modern Art has used architecture as a vehicle for self-renewal and regeneration. With this building project, the Museum undertakes the most extensive redefinition of itself since its founding over seventy years ago. The timing could not be more appropriate, for MoMA's mission demands that we traverse the twenty-first century with the same confidence and boldness that we did the twentieth. Yoshio Taniguchi's dramatic and thoughtful design for the new Museum will allow MoMA to display its collections in fundamentally new ways and to offer greatly enhanced educational programming. In the new Museum, every space is either new or redesigned and equipped with the latest technology to provide the public with a richer and deeper experience. With this project, we will build both the spaces and the endowment necessary to ensure the Museum's success and stability far into this century.
This site will give you a better idea of these plans and provides a remarkable preview of the great new Museum of Modern Art.Founded in 1929, The Museum of Modern Art has consistently exhibited art that challenges ideas and alters perceptions. Throughout its history, the Museum has enriched generations of visitors and students from all over the world.The Museum must now improve, enlarge, and strengthen its mission. MoMA is building greater and more flexible spaces to display its collection, build closer relationships with students, and offer the public an enhanced educational experience. The new Museum will continue to occupy its current address—11 West 53 Street—but with approximately 630,000 square feet of space and the ability to accommodate 2.5 million visitors and 600,000 students every year—it will have almost double the capacity of its current facility. The beginning of construction in the summer of 2000 marked the end of a three-year planning phase that began in February 1996 with the acquisition of the Dorset Hotel and several smaller properties. These new properties made it possible for MoMA to expand its footprint significantly to the north and west. After an extensive worldwide search in which the Museum invited ten firms to submit preliminary plans, Yoshio Taniguchi was chosen as architect for the new Museum.
The New York firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates PC will serve as executive architect to bring Taniguchi's design to fruition.
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The musueum of art Modern11 West 53 Street,between Fifth and Sixth Avenue New York, NY 10019-5497Glenn D. Lowry Director