It’s A MAD, MAD, MAD Museum

When you live in New York City, you catch on pretty quickly to the fact that the city is constantly morphing its look, in ways both dramatic and small. You get used to walking under scaffolding and dodging construction vehicles. And you get used to coming up out of the subway and saying, “Hey! Where did THAT come from?”

The other day I was sitting with a   friend  at the little tables on the northeast corner of Columbus Circle, looking at one of the newest buildings in the city. Everyone I know has been calling it either “the new design building” or “the crafts museum,” but once it opened last month  it’ll be known as the Museum of Arts and Design, a name more befitting its elegant look.

Elegant indeed. It calls to mind The Four Seasons restaurant on East 52nd Street in Manhattan, that stalwart symbol of understated elegance which was designed in the late 1950s by Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson.

The new museum was designed by Allied Works Architectural, led by Brad Cloepfil, after his plan won a competition for the project. Getting a design gig this way isn’t new in New York---Central Park itself is the plan created by Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux which won  a contest held in 1857.

The new structure for the Museum of Art and Design  is built in the footprint of the old one, which was known by some as “the lollipop building” because of the shapes cut out of its façade. Those circles have been transformed into squares and oblongs, giving the building a truly updated feeling. The exterior is made of “luminescent ceramic.” I’m not sure what that is, but it looks great, kind of shiny and polished but not flashy.

Last week, I realized it was opening day at the museum when I saw several creatures bouncing around in front of the museum. Turned out they were humans wearing elaborate balloon costumes, like coats made of tubular balloons tied together. I think this bodes quite well for this latest addition to the landscape.

 

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