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New Musuem Expansion

New York, NY, USA
Architect
OMA – Office for Metropolitan Architecture
Executive Architect
Corgan/Cooper Robertson

The New Museum’s expansion on the Bowery in Manhattan’s Lower East Side is a ground-up construction adjacent to the museum’s original SANAA-designed building. The seven-story, 61,000 sq ft addition establishes a distinct architectural identity while doubling the Museum’s exhibition gallery space and enhancing areas for education, community engagement, and public programming. Emphasizing horizontality in contrast to the vertical stacking of the original building, the new design introduces gallery floors that align directly with the museum’s second, third, and fourth floors, enabling seamless, flexible circulation between the existing and new structures.

A glass facade with integrated metal mesh presents a veiled expression of interior visitor movement to the street. The west-facing atrium stair serves as a central connective feature, linking all levels—from lower-level support spaces to the ground-floor restaurant, plaza, and expanded lobby, and continuing upward through the galleries, artist-in-residence studios, and educational areas—while providing views of the surrounding neighborhood.

Front’s consulting scope encompassed more than twenty facade and roof systems for the expansion and alteration of the existing building, developed from schematic design through construction administration in collaboration with OMA, Cooper Robertson, and specialty contractors. The systems include custom inclined and vertical curtain walls, rainscreen glazing, sloped roof glazing, and skylights—all integrating laminated metal mesh—as well as metal panel rainscreens across the north, south, and east facades. Additional elements comprise the skybridge enclosure, glazing, and metal roofs; fixed and operable windows; new ground floor glazing and vestibules; terrace and elevator shaft glazing; vertical slot windows; and metal, fiberglass, and concrete terrace cladding. The scope also includes a structural glass connector at the east facade.

Courtesy of OMA
Courtesy of OMA

The New Museum’s expansion on the Bowery in Manhattan’s Lower East Side is a ground-up construction adjacent to the museum’s original SANAA-designed building. The seven-story, 61,000 sq ft addition establishes a distinct architectural identity while doubling the Museum’s exhibition gallery space and enhancing areas for education, community engagement, and public programming. Emphasizing horizontality in contrast to the vertical stacking of the original building, the new design introduces gallery floors that align directly with the museum’s second, third, and fourth floors, enabling seamless, flexible circulation between the existing and new structures.

A glass facade with integrated metal mesh presents a veiled expression of interior visitor movement to the street. The west-facing atrium stair serves as a central connective feature, linking all levels—from lower-level support spaces to the ground-floor restaurant, plaza, and expanded lobby, and continuing upward through the galleries, artist-in-residence studios, and educational areas—while providing views of the surrounding neighborhood.

Front’s consulting scope encompassed more than twenty facade and roof systems for the expansion and alteration of the existing building, developed from schematic design through construction administration in collaboration with OMA, Cooper Robertson, and specialty contractors. The systems include custom inclined and vertical curtain walls, rainscreen glazing, sloped roof glazing, and skylights—all integrating laminated metal mesh—as well as metal panel rainscreens across the north, south, and east facades. Additional elements comprise the skybridge enclosure, glazing, and metal roofs; fixed and operable windows; new ground floor glazing and vestibules; terrace and elevator shaft glazing; vertical slot windows; and metal, fiberglass, and concrete terrace cladding. The scope also includes a structural glass connector at the east facade.

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