Born in Bremerton, Washington, 1947
Education: University of Washington, 1971; architecture studies in Rome, 1970; post-graduate studies, The Architectural Association, 1976
Selected projects: Fukuoka Housing, Kiyushu, Japan, 1989­91; Stretto House, Dallas, Texas, 1990­91; Helsinki Museum of Contemporary Art, Finland (under construction)

The origin of museum as a room of the muse, a place to think and consider deeply and at length, is an idea to contemplate as we are faced with a major transformation of The Museum of Modern Art.

Architectural concepts at this stage in MoMA's redefinition provoke rather than resolve many questions. We have adopted a comparative method, proposing two concepts as heuristic devices enabling a better understanding of the potentials for MoMA's next expansion. These two concepts are dialectical. Concept A, Cutting, is vertically organized, while Concept B, Bracketing, is horizontally organized. Concept A adopts an evolutional architectural and urban form, while Concept B brackets the entire campus into a unified whole.

Questions of the Institution
Evolution vs. Involution: Is the growth of MoMA evolutional or involutional? If each successive building addition attempts to swallow the earlier buildings, isn't the expression turning inward? To roll up or wrap in a new envelope is to decline the evolutional expression of a succession. If a strategy for an overall envelope is adopted, what about the potential of further additions? On the other hand, if we allow a reworking of past elements now, can it yield new dimensions?

Eclipse of the Modern: Has there been an eclipse of the idea of the institution or does a transformed version continue? Has there been a break between the historical explanation of "modern" and subsequent interpretations? Can we locate this epistemological break in time: 1960? 1964? 1966? 1970? Is this period analogous to a natural eclipse—a partial darkening with transformation and recurrence?

Art in Our Time: The original sign welcoming visitors to the young Museum of Modern Art in 1939 read "Art in Our Time." As the much-expanded institution prepares for the next century of art, it must balance its commitment to its historic collection with its original mission statement. Alfred Barr's metaphor of "the collection as a torpedo moving through time," may today be seen as an overweight torpedo carrying a large burden.

Multidepartmental Structure: Is the present multidepartmental structure actually contradictory to the original mission of "art in our time," given the present challenges to distinct and traditional art categories? Should the structure be extended to more departments? Could a revolutionary closure of the present categories give birth to a cross-department hybrid?

Rooms vs. Flexible Space: Rooms, which were the gallery character of museums in the 18th and 19th centuries, were supplanted by flexible space and movable partitions in the 20th century. On the cusp of the 21st century, the new diversity of contemporary art media requires the acoustic and spatial separation of a gallery of rooms.

Art as Fundamental
The Collection, Space to Place:.... New galleries for the collection could be formed specially for individual masterworks, providing "a place in which they belong." To recognize the place of a masterpiece in a museum is to keep the museum with you wherever you go. Special rooms for Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Brancusi's Bird in Space, Fish, Magic Bird, and Socrates, or for Giacometti's works, would be great spaces of contemplation to which one can always return. The materiality of the walls and ceiling could be plaster, for example, reinforcing the fundamental solidity and quality of these spaces. Details where the wall meets the ceiling and the floor are essential in a contemplative gallery. These subtle conditions come to the foreground and intertwine with the experience of the art, establishing an important role for architecture, the subtle realm of touch, the haptic realm.

New Art, Toward an Unknown: Evolutional or experimental galleries in which any form of media could be presented would be offered. These spaces would be wired and equipped for projection devices from ceilings, walls, and floors. Ceiling structure would have the capacity for suspension of various screens and platforms. Artificial illumination would be adjustable, reaching a theatrical nature if necessary. These evolutional spaces (or nonspaces) can be fused into one another or, alternately, closed off.

Concept A: Cutting
The new site's zoning envelope is taken as a ready-made form, which is cut for natural light. A major cut is made for the main lobby, connecting 53rd Street, 54th Street, and the garden. This is a large public space with a ramp down to the cinemas and up to the galleries. In raising the issue of the evolutional nature of MoMA's campus, Concept A accepts each building phase as evolution expressed. The zoning envelope, itself a consequence of building density and light, is incised, creating internal light.

The volume is built out to the allowed floor area of 216,000 square feet, offering some loft galleries with exceptionally high volumes. This expanded area could concentrate all the galleries; one could move from the new collection galleries below to "evolutional," or experimental, galleries above. Staff offices are relocated in the former gallery floors. All work spaces receive natural light from the original facade and a few selective cuts from above. In the upper levels, truss space on sloped exteriors double-functions as light-baffle zones and mechanical-duct space. The deep cuts could contain all intake air, exhaust grilles, etc.

Urbanism: The public lobby connecting garden views with 53rd and 54th streets has true urban proportions. A through-block connection between 54th and 53rd streets would be a neighborhood contribution.... The vertical character of Concept A affords a public roof garden at the top of the building with fine urban views.

Light....In the cutting concept the potential of natural light is introduced into many of the galleries. This would be a nonglaring, diffused natural light, bounced off ceilings through the use of specially shaped baffles. All galleries with natural light have black-out screens, which are electrically operated and allow the light to be individually adjusted for particular works.

Circulation: The through-block public lobby opens a free flow of public circulation to all main areas. A direct ramp down to the cinemas prevents backup in the lobby and facilitates changing programs between day and evening. Elevators carry the public to upper galleries, with open stairs and ramps allowing a walk down. The staff entrance is through a reconstruction of the original 1939 MoMA entry. Stairs interconnect staff offices and allow natural light to enter from above.

The current escalators are replaced by a new "hall of reverie" running transversely the length of the garden. Here the view of the garden is enhanced along its full length....This would be a special hall for receptions, open to the garden in summer.

Constructability Issues....The main construction would go on while the Museum remains open. Once the new galleries and public lobby areas are completed, selective parts of the existing MoMA can be renovated in phases....

Alternate Studies: Certain aspects of Concept A could be developed differently. For example, a horizontal gallery organization would connect to existing gallery floors. The upper floors of the ready-made zoning envelope might be staff office lofts.

Concept B: Bracketing
A maximum of connectivity of gallery circuits is envisioned within an outer bracket, with the garden as the main focus at its center. This horizontally organized concept proposes lifting the garden 11 feet and shifting it +/- 70 feet west. This affords a more central position for the original 1939 building as well as two new below-garden experimental exhibition areas of 21,000 square feet each. Access is enhanced from all sides. The garden is perfectly rebuilt with the addition of glass bottoms in the pools and water year-round (dissolving snow from skylight to below).

Staff offices are located in the thin floor plates of the upper levels of the bracketing scheme providing light and air to all offices. The staff café would have a roof garden.

Urbanism: The reconfigured site provides an overall identity for the Museum within the city. Lobby and through-block connections are offered as in Concept A. Public view windows along 54th Street to the lobby gallery would enliven the currently blank street wall. The public roof area would be larger—however, lower in elevation— than in (A). The proposed moving rubber ramps would connect to this upper garden directly.

Art Underground: The underground, or "Orpheum," space gained in Concept B is an experimental space of vast proportions. This 21,000-square-foot below-ground volume corresponds to an underground focus on art of any and all media. This space, added to the given program, provides the volumetric equivalent of a prediction for a very active "art of our time" in the future.

Darkness: The mysteries of darkness and the unknown are an aspect of Concept B. Natural light plays a much subtler role in the horizontal organization. The horizontal promenade is bracketed by natural light at turning points in the sequence of galleries. The "Orpheum" underground space is characterized by darkness with glowing bits of light. All staff offices are located above ground with natural light.

Circulation: A through-block lobby contains quiet moving ramps lifting the public to the horizontal gallery floors and finally to the roof garden. . . .The staff (and public library) entrance is east of the garden on 53rd Street, with separate elevators. The art and service loading docks are reached at opposite ends on 54th Street.

Alternate Studies: Studies might consider a version of Concept B that doesn't move the garden....

Project Credits
Steven Holl Architects: Steven Holl, Justin Rüssli, Jan Kinsbergen, Annette Goderbauer, Michael Hofmann, Molly Blieden, Julia Barnes Mandle; Consulting Engineers: Guy Nordenson, Ove Arup & Partners; Code Consultant: Beth Lochtefeld Code Consultant/ Expediter, Inc.; Consulting Artists: Solange Fabião, James Holl.


These works have been selected from a larger collection of drawings that were submitted for the charette. In addition, the architect's statement has been abbreviated.