Adjaye's Design for Harlem Museum Unveiled

John Hill
26. września 2017
All images courtesy of the Studio Museum in Harlem

As announced in July 2015, Adjaye's new building will replace the Studio Museum's current home, a more than 100-year-old building that was renovated by the late African-American architect J. Max Bond, Jr. into the museum's home in the early 1980s and by Rogers Marvel Architects two decades later. Adjaye Associates is working with New York's Cooper Robertson on the project.

Left: 125th Street facade. Right: 124th Street facade

Adjaye's 82,000-sf building will more than double the museum's current spaces for exhibiting art and hosting its artist-in-residence program. Furthermore, the larger building will provide more space for education, public programs, and public amenities, including presentations on the lower level, a welcome center, a café, and a roof terrace spanning the whole building. Galleries for temporary exhibitions and the display of the museum's permanent collection are located on three floors in the middle of the building.

Street view at 125th Street
Building section with 125th Street on the right and 125th Street on the left

Per a statement from the Studio Museum, "David Adjaye’s design provides the Studio Museum with a dynamic, sculptural facade that contrasts strongly with the surrounding commercial buildings. The building has a porous, welcoming presence at street level, a light-filled core that soars up through the entire interior, and a tiered public hall, which the architect has likened to an 'inverted stoop' that invites people to step down from the street into a multiuse space that will be free and open to the public during Museum hours and used for presentations and informal gatherings."

Lobby
Below-grade hall

The Studio Museum in Harlem is located on 125th Street, a major thoroughfare in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood. Although the goal was to finish the new building by the time of the museum's 50th anniversary in 2018, that year will mark the start of construction instead. Currently the museum has raised 70 percent of its $175 million capital campaign goal for construction, operation, and to build endowment. The existing museum will close on 7 January 2018, though no opening date has been set for the new building.

Third-floor gallery
Second-floor gallery

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