Art & Design
Architects Mourn Former Folk Art Museum Building
As
scaffolding went up around the former Folk Art Museum building on
Tuesday, one of its two architects broke his silence to say how
devastated he and his partner are about the Museum of Modern Art’s
decision to tear down “one of our most important buildings to date.”
“Yes,
all buildings one day will turn to dust, but this building could have
been reused,” Tod Williams said in his first interview since the Modern
announced the demolition of this West 53rd Street building, completed in
2001. “Unfortunately, the imagination and the will were not there.”
Until
now, Mr. Williams and his partner, Billie Tsien, have declined to be
interviewed about MoMA’s hotly debated decision. Instead, since January,
when MoMA confirmed its conclusion that the neighboring Folk Art Museum
building could not be salvaged, this husband-and-wife architectural
team had let a prepared statement speak for them.
Mr.
Williams and Ms. Tsien issued another such statement on Tuesday, in
response to the appearance of scaffolding around the building, which
MoMA bought in 2011 when the folk museum vacated it because of financial
troubles.
“A
building admired, visited and studied by so many will now be reduced to
memory,” the statement said. “We understand the facade will be put in
storage, but we worry it will never be seen again.”
MoMA
declined to comment. It has defended the demolition as necessary for
its expansion. The museum plans to extend galleries through the Folk Art
Museum site and into new exhibition space that will be part of a tower
to the west, designed by Jean Nouvel for the Houston developer Hines.
In
response to protests, though, MoMA agreed to preserve the Folk Art
Museum’s 82-foot-high facade, which is being removed ahead of the rest
of the building; its future is unclear. For now, it will be transported
to one of the museum’s storage sites. An ensemble of 63 copper-bronze
panels, it was the most celebrated architectural feature of the
building.
Some
new homes for the facade have been floated, Mr. Williams said,
including MoMA/P.S. 1 in Long Island City, Queens. This idea was
proposed by Nina Libeskind — chief operating officer of the
architectural practice of her husband, Daniel Libeskind — and Fredric M.
Bell, executive director of the New York Chapter of the American
Institute of Architects.
“I
believe strongly that the facade of that building was an integral part
of the New York cityscape and that it should have, and could have, been
incorporated into MoMA’s plans,” Ms. Libeskind said in an interview.
“It’s a valuable piece of architecture that should be kept.”
Ms.
Libeskind said she and Mr. Bell are scheduled to meet with MoMA about
their proposal next week. “Whether or not they accept that, I have no
idea,” she said. “I think it is a reasonable, very intelligent
alternative.”
Asked
why he and Ms. Tsien had not addressed the facade’s future earlier, Mr.
Williams said, “We held out hope, even when we knew there was very
little hope, that the complete building could be saved.” He added, “We
were focused on saving the building so we did not think of the facade as
a separate piece.”
Mr.
Williams said he appreciated recent proposals to reuse the most
publicly recognizable portion of the building, though he and Ms. Tsien
have always maintained that the facade and the building were “a whole.”
That
said, Mr. Williams explained that during the construction process, the
facade was attached to the building as a separate element — “as an
architectural mask.” Though fragments of buildings have been preserved
at places like the Cloisters and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mr.
Williams said, “the idea of installing a few panels somewhere doesn’t
interest me.”
When
asked whether MoMA had contacted him and Ms. Tsien, Mr. Williams said,
“Only when we were notified that the building would be torn down.”
He
declined to address the personal issues involved; the situation has
been particularly thorny because the Modern’s expansion plan involves
another pair of architects with whom he and Ms. Tsien were friends:
Elizabeth Diller and Ric Scofidio. That husband-and-wife team are part
of Diller Scofidio & Renfro, the firm hired by MoMA to evaluate
whether the existing folk art building could be integrated into the
Modern’s expansion plans. Ms. Diller declined to comment.
Though
widely admired in architectural circles, the folk art building had been
criticized for its tight exhibition spaces. Asked about the building’s
quirkiness, Mr. Williams said: “It was absolutely quirky, but with
imagination, those challenges can be overcome. There were many
successful shows in the space.”
But
after six months of study, Diller Scofidio agreed with the conclusion
MoMA reached last year. The firm determined that trying to adapt the
former building would compromise its integrity.
Mr.
Williams said repurposing their creation could have worked and would
have been less expensive than the current plan. He maintains that it
might have been reinvented and reinvigorated by the process.
“People
have lost limbs, but they still retain their heart and soul,” Mr.
Williams said. “There are many things that happen to us in life, but it
makes us deeper and stronger. We get wrinkles, we lose hair. Our
interiors become more rich with time and use.”
Still,
Mr. Williams said he is trying not to be bitter. “There are many people
who waste their time looking back, and I don’t want to do that,” he
said. “I want to keep moving ahead.”
Correction: April 17, 2014
An article on Wednesday about complaints by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, architects of the Folk Art Museum building, over the Museum of Modern Art’s decision to demolish it as part of an expansion plan misspelled the surname of the architect who designed the tower in which MoMA will have new exhibition space. He is Jean Nouvel, not Novel.
An article on Wednesday about complaints by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, architects of the Folk Art Museum building, over the Museum of Modern Art’s decision to demolish it as part of an expansion plan misspelled the surname of the architect who designed the tower in which MoMA will have new exhibition space. He is Jean Nouvel, not Novel.
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