Double the Gallery Space for Contemporary Art in NYC
The New Museum has announced that its long-anticipated, OMA-designed building expansion will be completed in Fall 2025. The 60,000 square-foot addition, designed in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, will mark OMA’s first public building in the city. The expansion will double the gallery space and improve accessibility and visitor flow with new elevators, an atrium stairway, and a welcoming entrance plaza. The project also introduces new spaces for artist residencies and a purpose-built home for the Museum’s cultural incubator, NEW INC.
The New Museum has always been a forward-thinking space for contemporary culture in New York. Since its founding in 1977, the Museum has evolved to meet the needs of artists and audiences, expanding its footprint at key moments. "The New Museum has always been a future-facing museum — not a place for preserving and recording history, but a place where history is made," said Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director of the New Museum. With this latest expansion, the Museum hopes to strengthen its role as a civic resource for New York City’s diverse communities and the international art world.
The OMA-designed expansion will stand in dialogue with the existing SANAA-designed building, which has stood as a New York icon since 2007. "The New Museum is an incubator for new cultural perspectives and production, and the expansion aims to embody that attitude of openness," noted Shohei Shigematsu, OMA Partner. The building will introduce horizontally expansive galleries, contrasting with the existing museum’s verticality, offering spaces for gathering, exchange, and artistic creation. It will also feature transparent elements in its central atrium and terraces, inviting public engagement with the surrounding community.
The inaugural show for the expanded building, titled "New Humans: Memories of the Future," will bring together the work of more than 150 artists, scientists, and cultural figures. Spanning the entire museum, the exhibition will explore humanity’s evolving relationship with technology and what it means for the future. "’New Humans’ reveals how our most terrifying contemporary concerns are in fact as old as humanity itself," said Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director of the New Museum. This exhibition will place contemporary works alongside significant pieces from the 20th and 21st centuries, offering an interdisciplinary view of artists’ visions for humanity in a changing world.
The expansion will also feature a dedicated artist studio, a forum with seventy-four seats, and an expanded space for NEW INC, further supporting creative entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, the seventh-floor Sky Room will double in size, maintaining its panoramic view of downtown Manhattan. The new atrium stairway will improve circulation between floors, offering views of the surrounding Bowery area. An open-air entrance plaza will serve as an additional venue for public art installations. The expanded lobby will include an expanded bookstore and a full-service restaurant.
The New Museum’s expansion will bring more gallery space along with an elevated experience for visitors. This project will not only double the museum’s footprint but also enhance its role as a cultural institution in New York City.
Project Information:
- Name: New Museum
- Location: 235 Bowery, New York, NY
- Design Architect: OMA
- Executive Architect: Cooper Robertson
- Previous Coverage: October 2017, June 2019
- Completion: Fall 2025
- Visualization: courtesy OMA, bloomimages
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