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# MoMA to Demolish American Folk Art Museum Building
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/moma-to-demolish-american-folk-art-museum-building/
- Published: 2014-01-08T23:41:17.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:44:44.000Z
- Description: The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is proceeding with its controversial plans to bulldoze the American Folk Art Museum building, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
- Author: Mostafa Heddaya
- Tags: News, MoMA, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1)

![Façade of the American Folk Art Museum (image via Flickr user 0x294)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/01/3939999694_4940a52ef8_z.jpg)

Façade of the American Folk Art Museum (image via Flickr user 0x294)

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is proceeding with its [controversial](http://hyperallergic.com/68696/what-should-moma-do-with-the-american-folk-art-museum/) plans to bulldoze the American Folk Art Museum building, the *Wall Street Journal* has [reported](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303393804579308713388648496?ref=hyperallergic.com). The museum was previously persuaded to recant their April 2013 decision to raze the 2001 building by [Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tod%5FWilliams%5FBillie%5FTsien%5FArchitects?ref=hyperallergic.com) and promised to work to incorporate the structure into the museum’s expansion. But the architects responsible for the 105,000 square-foot redesign ultimately balked at this compromise. “Here, there’s a kind of ethical problem that to save the building … you end up losing so much of it that in the end, the integrity is gone,” architect Liz Diller of the firm [Diller Scofidio + Renfro](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diller%5FScofidio%5F%2B%5FRenfro?ref=hyperallergic.com) told the *Wall Street Journal.*

The structure’s original architects, Williams and Tsien, were reportedly informed of the decision in person by Diller and her husband, Ricardo Scofidio. In a statement cited by the *Journal*, “Mr. Williams and Ms. Tsien said the decision was a ‘missed opportunity to find new life and purpose for a building that is meaningful to so many.'” (The full statement is posted on the [blog of the *Architect’s Newspaper*](http://blog.archpaper.com/wordpress/archives/77925?ref=hyperallergic.com#more-77925).) The [American Folk Art Museum](http://www.folkartmuseum.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) sold the building to MoMA in 2011 and moved to a space one-sixth its size at 2 Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side.

Paul Goldberger has an early critical [reaction](http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/01/american-folk-art-museum-demolition?ref=hyperallergic.com) over at *Vanity Fair*:

> The brooding, somber façade of the folk-art museum, made of folded planes of hammered bronze, combines monumental dignity with the image of delicate handcrafting, and it is a majestic, if physically small, architectural achievement. A city that allows such a work to disappear after barely a dozen years is a city with a flawed architectural heart. A large cultural institution that cannot find a suitable use for such a building is an institution with a flawed architectural imagination.

**Update**: At 6:40pm EST, MoMA released a [statement](http://ebm.enews-moma.org/c/tag/hBSzeH8B73jgnB83lCeNsk39zBE/doc.html?t%5Fparams=EMAIL%3Dmostafa%2540hyperallergic.com&ref=hyperallergic.com) from director Glenn Lowry on the subject of the expansion. Regarding the fate of the American Folk Art Museum building, it reads:

> The plans approved today are the result of a recommendation from the architects after a diligent and thoughtful six-month study and design process that explored all options for the site. The analysis that we undertook was lengthy and rigorous, and ultimately led us to the determination that creating a new building on the site of the former American Folk Art Museum is the only way to achieve a fully integrated campus.