After 2-Year Renovation, the New Museum of Contemp Art Finally Reopens

Deeply rooted in downtown New York, as well as internationally, The New Museum has long been a home for a local community of artists, neighbors, and partner organizations across the Bowery and the Lower East Side.

On March 21, the 50-year-old NYC institution will reopen to the public after a two year shut down for a complete renovation revealing its 60,000 square foot building expansion designed by OMA / Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas in collaboration with Executive Architect Cooper Robertson—two living Pritzker Prize-winning architects.

The opening marks a transformative moment for The New Museum, one that has been in development for a decade even before the two year shut down for the top to bottom renovation. The expansion provides twice the gallery space for visitors and showcases an atrium staircase and new spaces for special events.

The increased scale allows for more ambitious exhibitions, more opportunities for artists, and more space for experimentation across disciplines. It also deepens the museum’s engagement with our community, strengthening partnerships, expanding access, and creating new spaces for connection, dialogue, and public life.

Founded in 1977, The New Museum has been a center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists from around the world. In fact, it’s the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art and continues to be a place of experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.

Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director of the New Museum, whose leadership over 27 years has been instrumental in shaping it into the art epicenter it is today, says, “We were able to expand the profile, the audience, the exhibitions, and the experimental projects, always innovating, always incubating new talent and new ideas.”

She then went on to praise the architects: “We were so impressed by Shigematsu and Koolhaas, and their understanding of the museum’s ethic, aesthetic, and the city that surrounds it. Their building is not a new wing. It’s not an extension, it’s not an annex, but it’s a second building and an expanded campus. Now we are at 120,000 square feet.”

Phillips spoke with pride of the great new galleries, a monumental 30-foot-high column-free space on the fourth floor, a very strong vertical circulation through the Atrium Stairs, which changes one’s whole experience of being inside the building. She also pointed out the new public spaces, such as the atrium, the plaza, the south elevators, the terraces, the seventh-floor Sky Room, and a new 74-seat Forum. On the top floor, which the architects described as the brain of the building, is where fabrication, production, discussion, and active dialogue take place.

On the ground level, visitors will be welcomed into an enlarged lobby, an expanded bookstore, and a full-service restaurant operated by the Oberon Group.

The director wrapped up with, “There is a permanent home for an artist studio, a learning center, a forum, multi-purpose spaces, and the museum’s cultural incubator NEW INC.”

Architect Shigematsu added, “The New Museum has always stood slightly apart, not just reflecting culture, but actively shaping it.”

He went on to describe the new structure as “two distinct yet highly connected buildings, independent, but in constant dialogue, one is more vertical and introverted, the other more horizontal and extroverted. Together, they create a broader spatial and programmatic repertoire for the institution.”

Shigematsu explained that his firm’s goal was not simply to add more space but to create a platform, one that can evolve with the institution and amplify its mission, a platform that allows new ideas to engage, circulate, and resonate beyond the walls of the museum.”

The New Museum’s inaugural exhibition, New Humans: Memories of the Future, will unfold throughout the entirety of the expanded museum.

Says Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director of the New Museum, “On three floors, you have more art than maybe some would wish to see, 732 individual objects. It’s an encyclopedic exhibition. It’s a big trans historic and interdisciplinary show; visions of the future and new conceptions of humanity.”

He went on to talk about why it’s such an unusual show. “On one end, a sort of warning for what technology has brought upon us in decades of totalitarian regimes and scary ideas about reengineering our bodies and our souls. But at the same time, we also find reason for hope, because if we have confronted such radical transformations before, we know we will, again, prevail and reinvent ourselves to shape the future again.”

The New Museum is located at 235 Bowery at the intersection of Bowery and Prince Street. For more information about hours, exhibitions, membership, and tickets, visit newmuseum.org.

Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novel “The Last Single Woman In New York City.”