The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will reporen in Midtown Manhattan this Saturday, Nov. 20, in a
renovated and expanded new building designed by architect Yoshio Taniguchi. During almost three years of construction, MoMA has been mounting exhibits in temporary space in a converted
Brooklyn warehouse. The reopening of the
Manhattan facility, which coincides with MoMA's 75th anniversary, marks the most extensive rebuilding and
renovation project in the Museum's history. The result is an elegant new home for the museum’s pre-eminent collection of modern and contemporary art.In addition to aesthetic considerations, Taniguchi’s design for the
renovated MoMA embraced many cutting-edge technologies, including a multimedia guide system designed by IBM. The new system is based on a design the company originally developed for the
EgyptianMuseum in
Cairo. (The current issue of Business Week offers a Q&A with John Tolva, the IBM program manager who served as executive producer of the new MoMA guide. The Q&A can be found at
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_47/b3909058_mz011.htm.)
Among the museum’s first exhibits in its new space will be “Yoshio Taniguchi: Nine Museums,” organized by Terence Riley, the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the MoMA.
The exhibition, which will be open through Jan. 31, 2005, “presents nine of Taniguchi's museum designs central to understanding his approach to architecture,” according to museum literature. “The exhibition begins with his first independent museum, the 1978 Shiseido Museum of Art, and ends with his Centennial Hall, which will be part of the
KyotoNationalMuseum upon its completion in 2007. Each building is distinctly modern and characterized by pure geometries, rich materials, and artful construction. Large- and small-scale models of each project, including The Museum of Modern Art's
renovated building, will be presented along with texts, photographs, and drawings. “
