Images: Design museum turns derelict building into New York icon

After 40 years of standing empty on a prominent New York spot on Columbus Circle, Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art has been reborn as the new home of the Museum of Arts and Design.

The reworking of the building by architect Brad Cloepfil of Oregon-based young firm Allied Works Architecture, in his first New York commission, involved a virtual demolition and reconstruction but in the same shape and size as the original.

The Museum of Arts and Design, formerly known as the American Crafts Museum, bought the derelict building – located at the convergence of Central Park, Broadway, 59th Street, Central Park West and 8th Avenue – from the city authorities in 2002, but took three years to win a legal battle against preservationists.

Architect Brad Cloepfil said of his design: “The new architecture for the Museum of Arts and Design is one of preservation and transformation - preservation of the physical body of the building… and its fleeting image from a distance.

“The transformation of the museum… converts a silent and inert building to one of life and light, and creates a resonant context for the display and interpretation of contemporary art. It is the force of light acting upon the building that transforms both the physical body and spatial experience of the building. Through a single act of editing - a two-foot-wide cut into the solid concrete walls - the building is opened up and rendered transparent.”