Rem Koolhaas-designed building marks a new chapter.
The New Museum has opened the doors to its long-anticipated expansion building, designed by Rem Koolhaas and his firm OMA. The new structure adds significant gallery space to the Bowery institution and reshapes the museum’s capacity for large-scale commissions and international exhibitions.
Since its founding in 1977, the New Museum has occupied an unusual position in the New York art world—committed to emerging and underrepresented artists at a moment when most institutions were focused elsewhere. The opening of the OMA-designed expansion represents the museum’s most significant infrastructure investment in its history.
The new building adds approximately 26,000 square feet of gallery and programming space, including a dedicated floor for large-scale installations and a new ground-floor space designed to activate the museum’s relationship to the street.
The inaugural program across both buildings brings together a diverse range of commissions and exhibitions, several developed specifically for the new architecture. Early highlights include a monumental installation on the expansion’s top floor and a group exhibition examining the history of the museum’s own collecting and commissioning practice.
The expansion opens to the public this month.
