The New Museum has a packing-tape problem. In late March, its $82 million, shardlike addition, developed by Shohei Shigematsu and Rapid Eye Movement Koolhaas of the Workplace for Metropolitan Architecture, lastly opened to the general public. Many critics, including our own, applauded the brand-new building. (“A shot of revitalizing playfulness”and “brilliantly subtle,” with familiar OMA flourishes like its triangular rooftop cutouts.) Others saw a rush job. “It is streamlined, slick, shiny, try-hard, angular, studiously aloof, and photogenic (but only if you do not look too carefully),” Christopher Hawthorne wrote in his Punch List newsletter, noting strips of packing tape on the sleek metal staircase and “employees’ finger prints and Pollockian splatters of black paint caught for what may be eternity below sheets of glass.” Architects overdid too. “If your grand staircase is the most public face of the structure, then why is it covered in clear packing tape on opening night?” one said.
Possibly analysis was to be anticipated. The growth along the Bowery was OMA’s first major public commission in the city, and the company’s track record precedes it. Then there were the delays: It was supposed to debut in 2022, but the pandemic implied building just began that year. And for relatively mystical reasons, in 2015’s prepared resuming was pushed back. The cost likely didn’t assist either. But is a little stray tape or a clumsily set banister panel actually that huge an offer? According to at least one museum director I talked with, it is a little bit of egg on the face for the New Museum. Had it been their organization, states this director, who has actually supervised multimillion-dollar restorations in New York and elsewhere, they would have been “a a lot more proactive client” to ensure everything at least looked right by the opening. “In my experience, you don’t open with apologies that this isn’t done yet,” this director tells me. “If we had to wait on the maker of something, you still dressed it so that it was unnoticeable.” (The New Museum did, in reality, open with apologies. “If you see some blue tape around, that’s since that’s what exhibitions are made from,” creative director Massimiliano Gioni obviously informed attendees at journalism preview. “We were working really late. I hope you can’t actually inform. If you do inform, please forgive us.”)
From left: Photo: Sukjong Hong Image: Sukjong Hong From top: Image: Sukjong Hong Picture: Sukjong Hong When I started speaking with people on the project, multiple subcontractors pointed fingers at Sciame Building, the firm worked with to construct OMA’s vision.”Sciame has actually carved out this specific niche in basic contracting that they are the art specialist,” one building and construction employee informs me. The issue, this person says, was that the business was managing too many jobs along with the New Museum– among them, a significant remodelling for the Frick and constructing a totally brand-new Studio Museum in Harlem. As this subcontractor put it, “They put the B-team on the New Museum and sent the A-team to the Studio Museum.” (Per Sciame, the firm “routinely finishes numerous best-in-class projects throughout many structure sectors concurrently, including lots of New York City cultural jobs.”)
Sciame’s scheduling and management problems likewise resulted in job delays and a disorderly worksite, according to at least 3 subcontractors I consulted with. There was a March 21 due date, and individuals were racing to end up. “The woodworking trade would set up walls and after that you ‘d have to remove the wall or try to work around it,” among these employees informs me. “Basically all these trades were in each other’s method.” In the days leading up to the opening, another employee says, “they were still doing pretty heavy work adjacent to or on top of finished surface areas,” and adds that they saw newly poured concrete floors harmed by dropped tools and heavy devices that had actually been dragged throughout the space: “Everybody was like, ‘This is among the worst jobs I have actually ever been on.'” (Per Sciame, “NYC building and construction sites can be defined by some as ‘organized mayhem.'” However, the company adds, “Just like all our jobs, the structure will be fully turned over with all finishes in location as developed and envisioned by the design experts.”)
From left: Picture: Sukjong Hong Image: Sukjong Hong From top: Image: Sukjong HongPhoto: Sukjong Hong
This very same employee also informs me Sciame failed to communicate the profile of the task– or, notably, OMA’s profile– and the truth that this would likely be one of the most greatly seen openings in the city. “It didn’t feel like that, the method they were running the job and rushing things,” this person says. (Sciame calls this claim “completely incorrect” and says, “The significance of the New Museum growth was never in question at all levels of the task and throughout the Sciame organization.”) But there were other concerns beyond Sciame’s control, per these tradespersons– the normal red tape that comes with structure in the city.
Other individuals who worked on the job state the New Museum expansion was quite basic– hectic, maybe, but absolutely nothing uncommon. “This rolled out as much as any job would roll out,” a various subcontractor states. “Every job, at the end, there’s a rush.” And the majority of tasks have what’s called a punch list to resolve cosmetic or other sticking around problems after opening. (To that end, Sciame tells me, “Similar to any job of this scale, punch-list work continues through last completion, and as always, we fully back up our work.”) An architect who wasn’t associated with the New Museum growth didn’t appear all that concerned about any of the issues people have called out either. “In my work, major warnings would be ease of access, ADA compliance, leakages in the roof or envelope,” this designer says. “None of these increase.”
Could this mini-mess have been avoided by additional delaying the opening? Possibly. “This never would have occurred if they permitted more time and had a more thorough punch list,” says the worker who declares to have seen concrete floorings being damaged. But that’s a difficult call to make on a job that’s already behind schedule, says the museum director: “You do have to stabilize between the imperative of opening and the necessary of accomplishing the full, last execution of all detailing– and it’s challenging to do the latter.” (Sciame says, “Some conditions observed throughout press sneak peeks showed work in development and were not agent of the completed structure. Those products have actually given that been resolved.”) In this case, the New Museum’s supreme computation may have been accepting one kind of bad press over another: Postpone yet againand get the art world talking, or open with some rough edges and … get the art world talking.
As for the museum’s visitors– they might not have actually observed anything askew. When I went last week, the location was busy an hour before closing with lots of people roaming through the galleries and atrium. Instead of looking down at misaligned joints in the staircase, they were looking up at Klára Hosnedlová’s peltlike hanging installation. Or a minimum of the majority of them were. “Type of a bad finish,” I heard one lady state about a space in the flooring.
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