Making room for contemporary art: OMA’s expansion of the New Museum
Two Pritzkers will now be living on the Bowery after the completion of the museum’s expansion: a story of architecture, ambition, and fifty years of contemporary art.
When the New Museum opens the doors of its expansion on March 21st 2026, it will mark the culmination of a nearly decade-long effort to give one of New York City’s most unconventional institutions the space it has always deserved. The new building at 231 Bowery, designed by OMA partners Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas, adds roughly 60,000 square feet to the museum’s existing footprint, doubling gallery space.
The expanded New Museum will become one of the most architecturally ambitious sites of the city, as well as one of the only places in the world where the work of two living Pritzker Prize-winning architects (SANAA and OMA) exists in continuous, connected dialogue.
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The museum was originally born nearly fifty years ago, from an idea in the mind of Marcia Tucker, a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, who observed firsthand that contemporary work was not easily assimilated into conventional exhibition spaces. When Tucker officially founded the institution in 1977, it operated out of small office spaces and temporary homes, each one reflecting its nomadic and agile spirit.
Its current location was opened in 2007, conceived by SANAA as a sculptural stack of rectilinear boxes, shifted off-axis around a central steel core, which internally created a variety of open, fluid spaces, each with a different character. The exterior is clad in an aluminium mesh to dress the building in a strong but delicate skin, making it an instant landmark on the Bowery. The institution soon acquired its neighbour lot in 2008, using it as an archive and studio space until 2017, when OMA was announced as the architect for the new building.
The New Museum’s challenge is that it is an expansion, and therefore, the new structure must be in dialogue with the existing architectural icon. The gallery spaces link on three levels, the second, third, and fourth floors, with ceiling heights calibrated to align across the structures. The result is that each new gallery can function as a distinct space, or dissolve into the adjacent rooms of the older buildings, creating what the architects describe as high flexibility and horizontal flow.
The expansion also reshapes visitor experience through the introduction of an atrium stair, offering views down Prince Street and over the surrounding neighbourhood, along with three new elevators. It also contains an expanded lobby spanning both buildings, a larger bookstore, a Forum on the sixth and seventh floors, and a new full-service restaurant. The expansion also inaugurates a public plaza at the building’s entrance, which will serve as the site for a commissioned sculpture by Sarah Lucas, a British artist selected as the first recipient of the Hostetler/Wrigley Sculpture Award.
For the façade, OMA has chosen laminated glass with a metal mesh interlayer, echoing SANAA’s aluminium skin while allowing greater transparency. In daylight, the two structures read as a unified presence, while at night, the OMA building opens up, allowing passersby to spy inside its interiors, while the older building remains more private. Shigematsu has spoken of wanting the new building to be an extension of the street, drawing the Big Apple’s energy up through its seven floors.
