The New Museum of Contemporary Art SANAA Eoin Moriarty, Niall McInerney, Conor Lyons

Introduction The original New Museum of Contemporary Art was founded in 1977 by a woman called Marcia Tucker. It was situated in West Village and to this day remains the only museum in New York dealing with exclusively contemporary art. It remained here for 6 years until it moved to a rented building in Soho. Plans for the new development began in 1999, but it was a long process and ground was not broken until 2005. The museum owners were looking for an architect who would create a surprising and innovative building, not trophy architecture, but a contribution to the architecture of the city that created good spaces for art. The site for the ambitious project was to be located in the Bowery, more specifically at a parking lot at the head of Prince Street. It is at the cross-roads of many exciting neighbourhoods, and the Bowery is said to have been the home of the creative community of New York. The Bowery had become quite a rough and run down area, as neighbourhoods around it were changing and growing all the time. This project was as much about creating a building where artists and public could flock to as it was an attempt to rejuvenate the area in its entirety. After a tedious worldwide selection, they eventually settled on the design presented by SANAA as it succeeded in bringing the site, the New Museums mission and the program into alignment. They wanted to establish a distinct relationship between the museum, the building, the Bowery Street and the City of New York. Their design was a stack of rectilinear boxes shifted off a central core. Where the boxes shifted, light was let in, providing lightness and openness to the whole shifting building. It was to be clad in an aluminium mesh, turning the entire structure into a play of light and reflection. The

building itself creates a beautiful relationship with the surrounding area through the theme of change. The Bowery and New York itself is an ever changing environment and the buildings change from box to box as they shift backward and forwards is in a sense a physical symbol of this change. It is an eye-catching structure from all angles, but also in quite inviting and not overwhelming. During the time of construction between 2005 and 2007, the Bowery was already changing for the better. There was a new hotel opened, as well as a whole foods supermarket and a branch of Chase Manhattan Bank. Several other New York galleries have taken up in lofts nearby. It seems that SANAA have created a landmark building for the artistic community. Over 100,000 people passed through the doors within the first two months of opening. The opening of this museum has focused global attention on this area, and it seems to be flourishing because of it. THE END