FOLK ART MUSEUM >>

The new American Folk art museum with the use of simple and artistic materials like concrete and bronze which is both a beautiful and serious space for the study and appreciation of both folk art and architecture.

Standing next to the Museum of Modern Art by Yoshio Taniguchi, the elegant slip of a building 40 feet wide and 100 feet deep and 8 stories high does not allow its neighbor to swallow it but make its own unique landmark. The architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien created an abstract wall of 63 metal panels made of Tombasil a silicon bronze alloy, which gives this diminutive building an institutional stature.
Billie Tsien calls it a very "moody material". She says "sometimes when you see the sunlight on it, it seems very warm and almost glowing golden. Other times it's very subdued."(Quote)

This museum with its mysterious exterior has been hailed to be the most acclaimed art museum that New York City has seen in the last forty years. The building devotes the upper four floors to galleries for both temporary and permanent exhibitions. Art will be integrated into public spaces, utilizing a series of niches throughout the building that offer informal interaction with a changing series of folk art objects. The design makes experience through the museum an architectural journey with the use of multiple and sometimes redundant circulatory paths.

The architects designed the project such that it would present the Museum's collections and exhibitions; through both straightforward and non-traditional display spaces, creating a comfortable environment for all users. The interior spaces are thematically perforated and a variety of glass boxes adorn its architecture (windows, vitrines, skylights). The small horizontal and vertical window cases are positioned though out the museum to frame events on the street from the inside.

The work of Tod Williams Billie Tsien and Associates bridges across, different worlds of theory and practice; of architecture and the fine arts. Their design for the new American Folk Art Museum on 53rd Street in New York City is a testimony to their minimalist style, which exhibits their careful attention to context, to detail and to the subtleties of a subdued but rich materiality.

Sources:
Billie Tsien, Architect, in "A New Museum Building Goes up in New York" by Raul Barreneche, American Folk Art Museum website
Photographs: Biju Chirathalattu
http://www.twbta.com/
http://www.folkartmuseum.org/

Related Books
_Work/Life : Tod Williams Billie Tsien