MOMA the Destroyer?

The former American Folk Art Museum building. New York City 1997-2001, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. Photo Giles Ashford.

We're not talking about the latest bizarre horror movie. The villain is New York's own Museum of Modern Art and its proposed plan to raze Tod Williams and Billie Tsien's 53rd Street building, a striking structure which formerly housed the American Folk Art Museum. The plan has provoked volleys of criticism from architects, preservationists, ordinary citizens, and serious architecture critics. (See Martin Filler's acerbic article in the May 23, 2013 issue of the New York Review of Books.) If MOMA goes ahead with the ill-advised destruction project, it would be committing cultural vandalism. And this horror would occur in real life-- not on the silver screen.

Perhaps responding to the protests, MOMA announced yesterday (May 9) that it would reconsider its plans. But as Robin Pogrebin reports in the New York Times, anonymous insiders say that the museum is still likely to go ahead with the destruction. We await MOMA's final decision and can only hope for the best.