The Queens Museum of Art Building Expansion, QMA New York Architecture Images, Architect, Photos

The Queens Museum of Art Expansion Building

Contemporary NY Building in Flushing Meadows Corona Park design by Grimshaw architects

Oct 31, 2013

Grimshaw Unveils First Look At Queens Museum

Address: New York City Building, Queens, New York 11368, United States

Phone: +1 718-592-9700

The Queens Museum of Art Building Expansion

On 30 October 2013, the newly expanded Queens Museum, designed by Grimshaw, was inaugurated by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the museum’s Executive Director Tom Finkelpearl, and museum trustees.

image : Courtesy of Grimshaw and the Queens Museum of Art

The Queens Museum of Art Building Expansion

Located in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, New York, the renovation doubles the size of the institution, adding 50,000 square feet of new galleries, classrooms, public event spaces, a café and a museum shop.

Mark Husser, Managing Partner of Grimshaw, New York, said, “The museum’s aspirations were made very clear from the outset. Our scheme embodies the overarching philosophy of openness and community outreach by increasing the visibility of the museum from the Grand Central Parkway, improving circulation throughout, and adding additional gallery space for changing exhibits.”

With newly enhanced visibility, an updated west ceremonial entry plaza attracts visitors to the site, while also serving as a gateway to the park beyond. A sculptural metal entry canopy and a series of glass panels which span the length of the building now mark the renovated west entrance.

Equipped with programmable LED lighting, the dynamic façade will enable the museum to commission artists to showcase changing works of art. From the park, the east façade’s restoration of the building’s original colonnade, with the addition of new large-scale windows, invites park goers to explore the museum.

Queens Museum Large Works Gallery ; Mayor Bloomberg at Queens Museum:

photos © Jeff Gahres

“Our one word mission statement is openness,” said Tom Finkelpearl, Executive Director of Queens Museum. “I think that Grimshaw, the fabulous architects who have done this renovation, have expressed that openness in this space – open to ideas, open to the future of art, contemporary art, plus open to the community and open to the sky.”

Grimshaw approached the architectural design as a series of interventions devised to take advantage of the historical assets of the pre-existing structure. A new skylight will allow natural light to filter inside the museum through a hanging glass lantern, diffusing daylight to the surrounding galleries.

This feature allows visitors to get a glimpse of the sky while also maintaining a connection with nature throughout the new exhibition spaces that carefully preserve the artwork.

A suite of six galleries surrounds the central large works gallery, situated below the skylight and lantern. For more light-sensitive work, strategically aligned louvers above the bordering galleries provide shade to the art within, and two blackout galleries offer space for the more delicate work.

A fluid glass staircase developed by Grimshaw’s Industrial Design Unit responds to the existing geometry of the building and offers access to additional public areas on the building’s second floor.

The Queens Museum will be Grimshaw’s first completed project procured through the Design and Construction Excellence program administered by the New York City Department of Design and Construction.

The Queens Museum will reopen on Saturday, November 9, 2013. For a full list of opening weekend events, please visit www.queensmuseum.org

Grimshaw was supported by the following design team:
• Executive Architect: Ammann & Whitney
• Structural Engineering: Ammann & Whitney
• Services Engineer: Buro Happold
• Museum Consultant: Lord Cultural Resources
• Landscape Architect: Mathews Nielsen

The Queens Museum of Art Building Expansion images / information from Grimshaw

Queens Museum of Art Building : curent information + photos for the First Phase, posted 10 Mar 2014

Mar 28, 2013

The Queens Museum of Art Expansion

QUEENS MUSEUM OF ART NEW EXPANSION DOUBLING INSTITUTION’S SIZE OPENING OCTOBER 2013

On April 11 2013 the Queens Museum will be hosting a first look at their architectural expansion, which will double the size of the museum.

The Queens Museum of Art Expansion Building

Design: Grimshaw

Inaugural Season to Include Exhibitions and Performances by Pedro Reyes, Bread and Puppet Founder Peter Schumann, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao, and the 6th Queens International Biennial

QUEENS, NY – The Queens Museum of Art’s expansion project, designed by Grimshaw, will further enhance the museum’s ability to present high-quality art to the uniquely diverse communities of Queens through a broad variety of exhibitions and programs that reflect the richness and breadth of the cultural environment.

The Queens Museum of Art exhibition lineup for Fall 2013 to coincide with the opening of the museum’s expansion will be Pedro Reyes’s The People’s UN (pUN), Peter Schumann: Black and White, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: The New York City Building, and Queens International 2013.

image : Courtesy of Grimshaw and the Queens Museum of Art

Doubling the institution’s size to a grand total of 105,000 square feet upon completion, the expansion will provide the museum with an additional 50,000 square feet of space, including a suite of new galleries, artist studios, flexible public and special event spaces, education classrooms, a café, back-of-house facilities, and visitor amenities.

In addition, the west façade, facing the Grand Central Parkway, has been redesigned with a new entrance and drop-off plaza and that features a 200 x 27-foot glass wall that will announce the museum to the 244,000 motorists passing by every day. This entrance will also serve as a unique exhibition space for commissioned artworks that will adhere to the glass surface and features a flexible multi-colored lighting system, which will eventually present commissioned artist projects.

The $68 million project also includes a second new entrance and expanded outdoor space on the Flushing Meadows Corona Park side of the building, as well as a generous skylit atrium.

The expansion is supported by the Office of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Office of Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, New York State, the New York City Council, and generous donations from private individuals and corporations. The Queens Museum of Art celebrated a groundbreaking on April 12, 2011 and is set to open in October 2013.

The inaugural exhibitions highlight the expanded gallery space and showcase the Queens Museum of Art’s dedication to presenting contemporary art that engages the various communities it serves. Tom Finkelpearl, Executive Director of the museum states, “At the Queens Museum, our commitment to the local is as profound as our dedication to creating an international crossroads.

In October, after years of design and construction, we will finally have the sort of exceptional space our community deserves, one that will allow us to continue to offer our innovative slate of exhibitions and programs.”

Regarding the design of the building, Mark Husser, Managing Partner at Grimshaw, states, “One of the great assets of the New York City Building, and the reason the building has survived and been adapted for so many different uses over the years, is its intrinsic structural logic and robustness.

It is inherently flexible, and its long span roof will make it one of the largest art spaces in the city. It has good bones, hence, our design is to capitalize and amplify those qualities while making strategic interventions to create flexible contemporary art galleries, introduce natural light, and improve flow and circulation.”

Also timed with the inauguration of the new building, the museum is undergoing a rebranding initiative with a new visual identity, a renaming of the institution from Queens Museum of Art to the Queens Museum, and launch of a redesigned website to accompany the fall reopening. Further details will be released in the coming months.

image : Courtesy of Grimshaw and the Queens Museum of Art

– Pedro Reyes and The People’s UN
Pedro Reyes’s exhibition, The People’s UN, or pUN, brings together citizen representatives of the 193 member states of the United Nations for mock assemblies and performances which reference the building’s history of hosting the General Assembly of the UN between 1946-1950. pUN will be presented as a counterforce to the UN.

Reyes will employ alternative negotiation techniques drawn from radical theater, psychology, marriage counseling, and corporate management consulting as opposed to traditional diplomacy to address foreign relations issues.

Humorously redeploying the format of the UN—caucuses, plenaries, simultaneous translation—pUN will entertain but also inform, and the objects and documents produced will be delivered to the UN in a culminating event. pUN is planned for October 2013, and will include both private and public performance sessions under the new massive central skylight.

– Peter Schumann: Black and White
Also premiering with the opening of the museum’s expansion will be Peter Schumann: Black and White, the first solo museum exhibition of Bread and Puppet Theatre founder and director Peter Schumann. The Queens Museum of Art’s presentation of Schumann’s groundbreaking political performance art is a strong response to today’s urgent questions about the role of the artist in society, at a key moment for both the Queens Museum of Art and Bread and Puppet.

The materials used to create Schumann’s large-scale puppets and stages—black and white house paint applied to discarded and recycled paper, cardboard, and fabric—reflect the bare-essential production values and approach to living that have been central to Schumann’s work for his entire career.

The exhibition consists of two large-scale immersive gallery installations combining new paintings, drawings, papier-mâché sculptures, handmade books, automata, and kinetic machines. It also includes pieces dating back some 50 years, which Schumann will deconstruct and reconstruct entirely, performing a survey of his work through the urgent lens of the present.

A separate 40 x 150-foot mural will be created live, during viewing hours in the first week of the exhibition. Schumann will also stage monthly solo performances in a papier-mâché “chapel” housed within the larger installation. The exhibition will be mounted in the largest of the museum’s six new galleries, a skylit 2,600 sq. ft. space located just inside the new west entry.

– Queens International 2013
Another highlight of the Queens Museum of Art’s reopening season will be Queens International 2013, the sixth edition of the Museum’s biennial exhibition of artists from around the world who live or work in Queens. This year the Queens Museum of Art has invited Meiya Cheng, co-founder of the Taipei Contemporary Art Center, to co-curate with Hitomi Iwasaki, Queens Museum of Art Director of Exhibitions/Curator.

This marks the beginning of a new tradition for Queens International that engages a co-curator from overseas to consider the Queens art community in a fresh perspective. The show will also address globalization in Queens from a variety of angles by facilitating and implementing collaborative projects between Taipei-based and Queens-based artists.

– New York City Building Time Lapse, 2009 – 2013: Photographs by Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao
For the duration of the museum’s expansion project, Taiwan-born, Queens-based photographer Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao has been in residence capturing the transformation of the New York City Building.

A series of Liao’s large-scale photographs will chronicle this most recent metamorphosis while archival photographs, documentation and blueprints will convey the rich history of the building from its role as the New York City Pavilion in the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs, home of the United Nations General Assembly (1946-1950), and site of both the Queens Museum of Art (1972 – today) and the World’s Fair Skating Rink (1952-1962; 1964-2008).

In addition to Liao’s commissioned work, Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao: The New York City Building will feature material from the Museum‘s archives, the United Nations Archive, the Archive of the New York City Parks Department, and Grimshaw.

For more information on these upcoming exhibitions, please visit the Queens Museum of Art website at: www.queensmuseum.org.

image : Courtesy of Grimshaw and the Queens Museum of Art

About Grimshaw
Grimshaw was founded in 1980 in London by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw and now operates worldwide from offices in New York, London, Doha, Melbourne, and Sydney.

The practice’s international portfolio, which includes work in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, and Mexico, is characterized by structural legibility, innovation, and a rigorous approach to sustainable design and detailing.

One of the most outstanding design firms practicing today, Grimshaw has renovated several historic structures such as the redevelopment of the Victorian Grade 1 Paddington Station in London, England; the restoration of Thermae Bath Spa in Bath, England; and the adaptive reuse of the pre-existing abandoned blast furnace of Horno3: Museo del Acero in Monterrey, Mexico.

Grimshaw has provided planning and architectural designs for cultural institutions including Cornwall, England’s Eden Project; the Caixa Galicia Art Foundation in A Coruña, Spain; and the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center in Troy, New York. In the United States, the practice is awaiting completion of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science in Miami in 2015.

Grimshaw is dedicated to the deepest level of involvement in the design of its buildings in order to deliver projects which meet the highest standards of excellence. This dedication is also based on a desire to be truly engaged in the evolution of a place – to contribute to its development on a meaningful level. It is the firm’s aim to be wholeheartedly engaged in the environments in which it designs, and from this awareness generate truly inspiring and transformative design, in New York, and across the globe.

The Queens Museum of Art is a local international art space in Flushing Meadows Corona Park with contemporary art, events and educational programs reflecting the diversity of Queens and New York City. The museum presents the work of emerging and established artists, changing exhibitions that speak to contemporary urban issues, and projects that focus on the rich history of its site.

QMA is also home to the Panorama of the City of New York, a 9,335 square foot scale model of the five boroughs; the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass; and a collection of more than 10,000 artifacts from both New York World’s Fairs. The museum seeks to exact positive change in surrounding communities through engagement initiatives ranging from the multilingual outreach and educational opportunities for adult immigrants, to our new year-long residency program, Corona Studio, which embeds artists in the local community.

The museum also conducts educational outreach tailored toward schoolchildren, teens, families, seniors as well as those individuals with physical and mental disabilities.

Queens Museum of Art is located on property owned in full by the City of New York, and its operation is made possible in part by public funds provided though the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. The Museum’s hours are: Wednesday – Sunday: noon – 6 pm.

Admission to the Museum is by suggested donation: $8 for adults, $4 for seniors, students and children, and free for members and children under 5. For general visitor information, please visit the Museum’s website www.queensmuseum.org or call 718.592.9700.

The Queens Museum of Art Expansion images / information received 280313

Queens Museum of Art Expansion architects : Grimshaw

Location: Queens Museum of Art, New York City, USA

New York City Architecture

Contemporary New York Buildings

NYC Architecture Designs – chronological list

New York City Architectural Tours by e-architect

Queens Buildings

New York Museum Buildings

New York Architecture Walking Tours

Queens Architecture

Queens Theatre Worlds Fair
Architect: Caples Jefferson Architects
Queens Theatre Worlds Fair

Queens Plaza Improvement Project
Design Team: Margie Ruddick – Landscape Designer Sandro Marpillero, Linda Pollak – Architects and Urban Designers Leni Schwendinger – Lighting Designer Michael Singer – Artist
Queens Plaza Long Island City

New Queens Library at Hunters Point
Design: Steven Holl Architects
New Queens Library Building

Queens Village School Building
Design: Swanke Hayden Connell Architects
Queens Village School