MoMA is Expanding Again, Drawing Criticism

Last week MoMA announced its new expansion plans which is basically adding more space by razing the adjacent old building of the Folk Art Museum (purchased by MoMA in 2011), and criticism is coming from both sides of the Atlantic. Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times criticised the plan calling it "lacking vision" while Los Angeles Times Archicture critic Christopher Hawthorne explains the facts and reasoning behind this expansion, but concludes "The great irony of this plan, as with so many recent museum expansions, is that out of frustration with its packed galleries MoMA has decided to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to build more of the same."

If you remember, MoMA had a big expansion just back in 2002 which had the museum move to Queens temporarily until it was re-opened to the public in September 2004. There were critics of that expansion too and the Guardian's Michael Wolf tells you why he thinks "...it is really too late for MoMA. The damage is done. Glenn D Lowry is the villain of the piece" because "The intimate, jewel-like space has become a standard-issue institutional structure, more suited to a corporate headquarters in Los Angeles or Dallas."   Read the rest of his article here.