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New Home for New York's Museum of Arts and Design Near Completion

The building will boast a new textured facade of glazed terracotta tile and ribbons of brushed and clear glass.

Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 7/15/2008 12:00:00 AM

One of the final components in the decade-long transformation of New York's Columbus Circle will open its doors on September 27 as the Museum of Arts and Design christens its new home.

Designed by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture, and located next to Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Time Warner Center, the 54,000-square-foot building is three times larger than MAD's previous facility. It includes 14,000 square feet of exhibition space for art, crafts, and design, galleries for the museum's permanent collection and special exhibitions, open artist studios, a resource center for contemporary jewelry, and a museum store. Also new are interpretive tools designed by Pentagram, including interactive exhibitions and a collection database accessible at terminals throughout the museum.

The space will highlight permanent installations of several works, including a site-specific stained-glass commission by Judith Schaechter, an abstract ceramic wall relief by Ruth Duckworth, and a ceramic mural by Robert Arneson, on display for the first time in 20 years.

The building itself will sport a new textured facade of glazed terracotta tile, and ribbons of brushed and clear glass weaving across the building's exterior, providing extensive interior light and views of Central Park.

"Allied Works has created a dramatic new space in which we can fully realize our expanded mission to explore the craftsmanship and creative processes of contemporary artists and designers," says MAD director Holly Hotchner. "Our new home allows us to continue our leadership role of working with contemporary artists through an expanded program that includes open studios and artists residencies, further distinguishing MAD among museums in New York and nationally."

MAD is now located in what was once a much-maligned modernist structure at 2 Columbus Circle, designed by Edward Durell Stone in 1964 to house the art collection of quixotic A&P Supermarket heir Huntington Hartford.