A number of prominent architects have called on the Museum of Modern Art to reconsider its decision to demolish its recent acquisition, the former home of the American Folk Art Museum.  In an open letter to the museum, Richard Meier, Thom Mayne, Steven Holl, Hugh Hardy and Robert A.M. Stern, among others, called for the Museum to reconsider razing the building, which it purchased in 2011.  “The Museum of Modern Art—the first museum with a permanent curatorial department of architecture and design—should provide more information about why it considers it necessary to tear down this significant work of contemporary architecture,” the letter says.  “The public has a substantial and legitimate interest in this decision, and the Museum of Modern Art has not yet offered a compelling justification for the cultural and environmental waste of destroying this much-admired, highly distinctive twelve-year-old building.” (more…)

The former home of the American Folk Art Museum, constructed just 12 years ago, will be demolished to facilitate an expansion by the Museum of Modern Art.  MoMA had purchased the building several years ago as the Folk Art Museum tried to pay off debts from an expansion, and plans to erect a new building to complete its proposed five-building campus expansion.  “We have a lot of art that we own that we would like to show,” said real estate developer and museum chairman Jerry I. Speyer “When we built what exists today we didn’t get as much exhibition space as we really need.” (more…)