American Folk Art Museum

The American Folk Art Museum, now destined to be demolished to make way for the MoMA expansion, was built in 2001 on the design of Todd Williams and Billie Tsien.  Most agree it is a beautiful building on the exterior; some are critical of its cramped interior.  Its major shortcoming is that it is not an adaptable building.  But that is its finest quality; it fulfills the museum’s needs meticulously.

Rising six stories on its small footprint of 40 feet x 100 feet, the interior, to a casual visitor, may look like a building housing stairs and passageways and little else. But the collection atypically consists of large and small objects that have to be shown together, those that require a distance to view and very small ones that require close views.  The skylit shafts in the center accommodate the former displayed to be seen from different directions and the latter arranged on the walls and small cases can be inspected conveniently along the stairs and passages.  The spatial perspective offer rich changes as we climb up and go around on each floor.  The building’s material is humble but warm and the architectural details betray craftsmanship, appropriate to the character of the exhibits.  The museum provides an ambulatory space with changing perspectives like some Italian hill town. It is imageable; it is a building as memorable as the objects it houses. In this regard it is unlike any other building anywhere; it is unique.

The economic reality of the patrician MoMA notwithstanding, it is a tragedy that it makes the poor folks succumb to it.