The only surprising thing about the Museum of Modern Art’s long-anticipated announcement that it will demolish Tod Williams and Billie Tsien’s Museum of American Folk Art building of 1997–2001, an architectural gem that abuts the MoMA campus on Manhattan’s West 53rd Street, is that this deplorable decision took so long to occur. When in 2011 the American Folk Art Museum was compelled to sell the decade-old building to its next-door neighbor—because the worldwide economic crash had caused it to default on $32 million in bonds used to finance the $18.4-million structure—some commentators sanctimoniously portrayed the debacle as the comeuppance of a quirky little institution’s overweening ambition.
On the demolition of the Museum of Modern Art’s Museum of American Folk Art building. [via NYRB]
Here’s Herbert Muschamp on the building back when it first opened in 2001. [via The New York Times]
Incidentally, this post has obliged me to create a new Architecture category. I believe it will serve us well.
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