Last December, opened the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA. The new building, wedged in the commercial fabric of the East Village, situated in a block of the Bowery at Prince Street close, in an area still not reached by the wave of urban renewal and construction that is reshaping the whole of downtown Manhattan. The museum is in fact an area peripheral to the center of cultural life of the coated galleries of SoHo or Chelsea, for a specific choice of the programmatic direction of the Museum. This institution was founded in 1977 by the expulsion from the staff of the Whitney Museum of her historic director, Marcia Tucker (1940-2006), who decided to give birth to a new container for the production and communication of contemporary art, the first opening in Soho seat of what was the establishment of reference for contemporary art housed in large movements alternative to American museums. In line with its tradition when they have to start the construction of a new and more suitable venue for their events, the direction of the New Museum has chosen an area of \u200b\u200bNew York even out of the great wave of renewal that hit Manhattan after September 2001 and '11, not wanting to resort to the big names of contemporary architecture in recent years have won the architectural scene in the city, has identified a range of emerging architects already but certainly talented and experienced including organized a consultation on the draft the new headquarters to be inaugurated year of the thirtieth anniversary of the foundation. The comparison between David Adjaye, SANAA, Abalos & Herreros, Reiser + Umemoto, Gigon Guyer, winners are able Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA also because they are better able to interpret the spirit of informal grand opening of the museum institute. Sejima and Nishizawa was commissioned in 2002 aware of confronting a very difficult site, which no doubt hid large settlement, and a framework needs a lot of birds fly to and difficult to interpret. The block chosen for the new building is wedged tightly into a ring of small commercial buildings are not particularly qualified long The Bowery Street, one of the busiest lines of the Manhattan, but almost in line with Prince street that allows a perspective central to many blocks away the cell identified for the museum's size planimetric very minimal, about 21 to 35 meters on these small dimensions Sejima and Nishizawa have also decided not to use all the available space requirements, resulting from nearly 55 meters high building, to create a system volume much more articulate than they would have allowed the complete saturation volumetric sito.Questa choice has proved successful because it allowed the exhibition area while maximizing the almost vertical closures completely opaque, opening cuts of light at different points using the articulation of the volume of the building. The spatial configuration of the building is defined by the juxtaposition of seven small volumes stacked in a seemingly haphazard, non-perfect overlap of the volumes is found to allow the expedient of bringing natural light into the interior space almost completely opaque. The only element of continuity between the physical and structural seven boxes is blocking communications verticali.Le small building and the manufacturing system used allowed to obtain all seven floors completely free of vertical elements, optimizing so the flexibility of the exhibition spaces. The implementation looks almost brutal in its simplicity, the clarity of the volumes is accompanied by the clarity of the technical solutions chosen for the development of various elementi.La steel cage structure is deployed along the entire perimeter of the building, the vertical cladding are made with a lightweight sandwich assembled dry also works as a base for the anodized expanded aluminum sheet, due to its morphology, reflecting the natural light, creating different color effects that vary with time of day and sky conditions, ranging from absolute white to gray aluminum natural, passing shades pink sunset or dark gray grazing in the vision from the road. The drilling of the sheet allows grazing through skilful lighting at night to turn almost the entire volume after sunset, lighting up a large part of urban surroundings vivace.Il otherwise very little treatment of the outer surfaces declined in various ways to achieve the elements of finishes vertical and horizontal internal partitions, are realized with the same material, simply by varying the size of the perforation of sheet metal, countertops and walls of some of the vertical partitions and furnishings of the bookshop and the reception desk. The widespread use of this aluminum mesh creates an atmosphere vague and nebulous in the lunar interior, accentuated by the use of fluorescent lighting fixtures cold light placed behind the perforated plates that double as speakers, rafforzandoo even more the lack of polarization of light. Almost all the floors are made with a mixture of industrial concrete finished with a transparent resin; this treatment, adding to the lack of sophisticated polarization and the informal spaces necessary to focus the attention of visitors on the works and installations. Sejima and Nishizawa have said they do not want to hide the artificial nature of the building behind the screens, trying to deal honestly and in harmony with the bareness of the exhibition spaces of the building structure and the presence of all parts of the service; one can see the lighting, the elements of fire, the electrical lines and channels of air conditioning, managed "to maximize the feeling of openness, realizing them as best as possible while remaining within the parameters of hardness. "The program of the building is quite complex, having to hold both the offices of the museum's exhibition space and services to visitors in about 5,500 square meters of the intervention. The program has been interpreted very simplifying the organization of the functions contained, trying to allocate a function at all levels in order to optimize the management of space. The building looks like a succession of boxes of comparable size but all different superimposed on one another and slipped in a non-ordered; slippage between a volume and the other leads to surface, internal heights and different volumes for each plan, offend different opportunities and fruitive espositive.Il access level is kept completely open on the Bowery on the road, bounded by a floor-to ceiling curtain made of glazing UltraCare to ensure perfect visibility among internal and external, so as to give the 'effect of physical continuity between the atrium and the space public sidewalk, and this effect is further exacerbated by the treatment of the floor of the atrium made with a mixture of cement ricercatamente not uniform in texture and color rendition. On the ground floor, in continuity with the atrium, the museum dedicated to the founder, Marcia Tucker died in 2006, the book shop and the café of the museum. From an open staircase to the attic of the ground floor almost like a fault light, leads to the basement where you will find the museum's small auditorium with 180 seats and services for visitors. Just the bathroom of the visitors are the only element of the whole building iperdecorato; coatings are realized with a colorful red aesthetic mosaic and gray, which reproduces the huge flowers ciliegio.I three successive planes are dedicated to the exhibition rooms which all have similar conditions but rfiuscendo construction to ensure a different ambient lighting, the play of staggering volumes of the museum conducts light on the different floors in a different way by multiplying the vocations of the exhibition spaces.
The third level is the only one open to visitors, with a large window to the west of New York, briefly interrupting the visual continuity of exposure, allowing the visitor to find the contact with the external environment, hence leads to a very dramatic exhibition space, the other smaller but about 7 meters high, designed to accommodate large installations with natural lighting conditions vary. The fifth and sixth level are the offices and teaching functions of the museum, while the seventh a spectacular multi-purpose room - the Toby Devan Lewis Sky Room - which opens onto a large terrace, and this space has been designed to accommodate events Extraordinary museo.Nelle galleries and in all areas of communication of the museum's design elements are visible, the bracing of the cage structure, painted white like all the technical elements of the museum, or simply left with their fire-retardant treatment on demand, shall peering between the openings of the skylights and windows, without any shame, as they the designers said "We want the building to show what it is. This openness is a constant as the New Museum of frankness and sincerity reflects the company's daily moves along the Bowery. "The impact of the New Museum on the visitor is certainly impressive, the clarity of light and matter start field in contrast to the dusty commercial architecture of the Bowery is certainly fascinating, but the solemnity of the absolute lack of detail and sought the details of brutal minimalism and the informal treatment of the surfaces, perhaps deserved more care in their implementation. Perhaps the construction of the building has not been able to interpret the full rigor of the SANAA project that would require more timely implementation of informality of the minimum detail. This state of uncertainty in the realization of certain technological solutions could be conditional durability of certain elements intentionally low complessi.È clear, however, as the desire to emphasize the uniqueness of the New Museum programmatic than other New Yorkers and American museums in general, has found in this building to its full realization.
