It?s a mistake to do away with Gordon Bunshaft?s addition to the New York museum Art museums are often their own worst enemy. Witness the endless series of expansions of New York?s Museum of Modern Art, which ate up Tod Williams and Billie Tsien?s exquisitely designed Folk Art Museum next door, a building that was only twelve years old. At the time this was announced, MoMA Director Glenn D. Lowry proclaimed ?floor plates will extend seamlessly??as if the ability to have seamless floor plates was the sole definition of a successful museum.
Now, we see an even greater travesty in Buffalo. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, one of the finest collections of 20th century art in the United States, needs more space. They?ve hired the New York office of Rem Koolhaas?s firm OMA to come up with a masterplan and design for a renovation and expansion of their building. I was born in Buffalo, studied at SUNY Buffalo, and still maintain a membership to the Albright-Knox. Bunshaft?s design was so pivotal in shaping my view of what architects do, I featured it in my cover letter when I successfully applied to work at SOM. We can?t save every old building simply because it?s old, but when we have the option to protect a vital piece of architectural history, I say we take it.
The basic premise of this proposal is to demolish the galleries and courtyard of Gordon Bunshaft?s spectacular midcentury addition in favor of a bloated, ill-defined, glass-walled lobby with gallery space on top. In...