Stairs Museum New York American Folk Art Museum Plan

Exuding a rugged, sculptural power through form and materials, a museum of folk art in Manhattan is a luminous backdrop for the exhibits

A museum of folk art in Manhattan forms a luminous backdrop for its exhibits

Originally published in February 2002

Metropolis Folk

The new Museum of American Folk Art is housed in an eight-storey building, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien & Assembly, at 45 West 53rd Street in the heart of Manhattan. This is the outset new museum in the metropolis since the Whitney opened in 1966, and is likewise the architects ' first important civic building in New York Urban center. As a museum, it provides a permanent abode for the study and appreciation of a vital fine art that is eloquent of America's cultural diversity, of its varied history and traditions. Artefacts- created out of materials to paw and, often, at critical moments in American history- evidence to the personal creativity and communal attempt that laid the foundations of American statehood.

Long and thin- simply 12.2m broad- the museum faces an open piazza so that it can be seen full-frontal from 52nd Street. Information technology is flanked on three sides by sites owned by the Museum of Modern Fine art. In upshot, its exterior is an assertion of its independence from MoMA and of its presence in the city. The building is clad with panels of Tombasil (a form of white bronze) which is used for burn down nozzles and send propellers and has never before been used architecturally. Panels are textured, their variations made deliberately by using steel or concrete moulds, and their fissures a natural consequence of the casting process: each one is different. Catching the glow of morning time and evening sun, the building's outside changes with conditions and seasons. The front s face itself is a faceted, sculptural composition of changing light, folded slightly in an echo of origami.

Material pleasure; impeccable detailing as if hand-finished cherrywood handrail, warm against concrete and glass, riveted translucent screen, slender gallery balustrading

Within the museum, exhibits range from objects drawn from the traditional folk art paintings, sculptures, weathervanes, flags, quilts- of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to the works of gimmicky cocky-taught artists. The 4 upper floors are devoted to galleries for permanent and temporary exhibitions. Collections are elegantly displayed by straightforward means in exhibition cases and in less traditional ways. Below the galleries are the ancillary facilities and then essential to modern museums. A mezzanine level, between ground and showtime floor, contains a small java bar, and has views out to 53rd Street and into the main basis floor hall and ii-storey atrium. Underneath it, next to the reception is a museum shop (open outside museum hours and reached by a carve up door). In the upper basement are an auditorium, lecture hall, lavatories and cloakroom; and below, a library, rare books room, acoustic facilities, offices and plant rooms. In full general, the w side of the building is lined by services such as a burn down stair, lift and stairs.

Just in other respects, blueprint refers to the grand traditions of nineteenth-century galleries similar the Soane Museum. The museum is capped by a skylight over a grand central staircase, washed in light, leading from 2nd to third floor. Openings on each level let natural luminance to filter into galleries and down to the lowest levels. Sectional changes subtly enlarge space, and progress through the building is enlivened by devices that let yous to see the same object from different angles, to see through a dividing wall from i gallery to another, to await from level to another. Objects mounted in niches throughout the building or on walls lining the light slots provide a continually changing landscape and recall the ways in which progress was often enriched in the quondam museums. The issue is a museum that feels very much larger than it is.

Formalism stairs of blueish black terrazzo from second to third floor. Salvaged gallery flooring of Reddish Lake Fir with uncommonly tight grain and warm colour

Materials and their coexistence are a continual source of pleasure. Floors are the simple slab, terrazzo ground, and Cerise Lake Fir. Prepare against the toughness of concrete (bush-league hammered in places) the Fir boards, up to Sm in length, are opulent. Other notes, warm confronting drinking glass and physical, are added by cherrywood handrails, and article of furniture designed by the architects and made by a Japanese American cabinet maker.

In a review of a Williams and Tsien firm on Long Island (AR September 1999), Margaret Seal observed the architects' 'conscientious and intelligent employ of materials and craftsmanship in pursuit of a gentle, sensuous and thoughtful organization of spaces revealed by low-cal'. They are, she continues, 'undoubtedly American in the range of their responses to the very different cultures, climates and landscapes of their state'.

The truth of these observations is borne out in previous works, each with its special human relationship to the context. Design of this museum celebrates with grace, without pomposity or condescension, the inventions of ordinary people. And, by the way in which the objects are displayed and illuminated, it acknowledges the powerful fascination of folk fine art.

Objects mounted on great concrete wall lining light well are given presence and dignity

Plan and Section drawings (click to view)

Architect: Tod Williams Billie Tsien & Associates, New York

Projection squad: Matthew Baird (project builder), Phillip Ryan, Jennifer Turner, Nina Hollein, Vivian Wang, Hana Kassem, Kyra Clarkson, Andy Kim, William Vincent, Leslie Hansen

Associate architect: Helfand Myerberg Guggenheimer Architects

Project squad: Peter Guggenheimer, Jennifer Tulley, Jonathan Reo

Designer: (permanent collection and inaugural exhibitions): Ralph Appelba um and Assembly

Photographs: Peter Mauss/ESTO

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Source: https://www.architectural-review.com/buildings/the-american-museum-of-folk-art

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