High-tech home for Folk Art - Front Page - American Fok Art Museum - Brief Article

Since its inauguration last December, the American Folk Art Museum has been enthusiastically received by the public and press as a dramatic new addition to New York's architectural panorama. Designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, it won the award for best new building from the Municipal Art Society. The $22-million, 30,000-square-foot building at 45 W. 53rd Street is a provocative modernist structure that starkly contrasts with many of the delicate folk-art pieces on view inside.

Museum director Gerard C. Werkin told the press that the 40-year-old institution, which until now has occupied various temporary quarters, was willing to take some risks to create an important work of architecture. Museum board chairman and collector Ralph Esmerian, who donated 400 works to the museum after seeing the design, said, "To simply redo an old brownstone and get an old historical society image would have been a disaster for New York. This is a city that thrives on energy and renewal." The strategy seems to have been effective. Museum spokesperson Susan Flamm told A.i.A. that since the building's debut, museum membership has skyrocketed and attendance has far surpassed expectations.

The eight-story structure, with six floors above ground and two below, includes a cafe, a bookstore and an auditorium. A skylight and cut-throughs on each floor allow shafts of natural light to penetrate the entire space from the top floor to the lobby. The building's glittery geometric facade comprises 63 large, textured panels made of cast Tombasil, a bronze alloy. Created by pouring molten metal directly on the foundry's concrete floor, each panel is unique. Inside, brutalist walls made of concrete terrazzo effectively highlight the intricate craftsmanship of works ranging from 18th-century needlework to 19th-century hand-painted hatboxes.

Inset into the walls along the staircases spanning the building are steel-framed glass-covered niches displaying fragile objects, such as the painted-wood carving Abraham Lincoln by Elijah Pierce, and a leaf-pattered ceramic vase fired in a kitchen oven by Eugene von Bruenchenhein. One floor is devoted to the work of Chicago outsider Henry Darger, on display through June 23. Suspended on wires attached to metal supports, 26 double-sided frames afford easy viewing of the artist's large, two-sided water-colors that illustrate scenes from his epic tales. A vitrine contains parts of the original manuscripts for his 15,000page novel and his 5,000-page autobiography.

More Darger drawings from the museum's collection can be seen through July 14 at the institution's satellite venue on Broadway near Lincoln Center. Now named the Eva and Morris Feld Gallery, it will be retained indefinitely as an adjunct space. Among the inaugural exhibitions in the new building, "American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum," remains on view through June 2.

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