Just The Ticket - New York Museum of Modern Art has two new ticket booths

Architectural Review, The, Dec, 1999

Detailed thought led to the modest but memorable ticket booths for New York's Museum of Modern Art.

Two new ticket booths at the Museum of Modern Art in New York by Scott Marble and Karen Fairbanks captured our imagination because, though modest, they solve a complicated set of problems (which at first appear to be extremely simple) with finesse and efficiency. Each booth has two attendants who face in opposite directions, and the little spaces had to be organized so that equipment could be arranged round each attendant to enable them to properly and easily perform their functions. Two queues of visitors will draw up, one to each side of each booth.

Clear and translucent glass planes exploit the natural light of the adjacent court, so the booths are continuously transformed from solid to transparent to reflective of neighbouring artworks as the queues move past them. At dim times of day, artificial light adds to complexities of perception.

Made as planes of opaque material and glass over a steel frame, the booths can be moved on inbuilt wheels so the museum can be freely thrown open. David Chipperfield was particularly impressed by the way the booths could be serviced mechanisms, and that so much had been achieved with so little fuss. They were the nearest entries to product design that we were able to premiate.

ARCHITECT

MARBLE, FAIRBANKS