Displaying items by tag: barry bergdoll

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York has named Martino Stierli its new Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design. Stierli, who currently teaches the history of  modern architecture at the University of Zurich, will begin at MoMA in March 2015. His duties will include overseeing the Department of Architecture and Design’s special exhibitions, installations from the collection, and acquisitions. Stierli succeeds Barry Bergdoll, who stepped down in 2013. Now a professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University, Bergdoll continues to be a part-time curator at MoMA. 

Stierli’s scholarly research has focused on a range of topics, including architecture and media, the photographic and cinematic portrayal of architecture, the intersection of art and architecture, the transatlantic exchange in postwar and postmodern architecture, and the role of travel in architectural education.

After news spread that New York’s Museum of Modern Art planned to tear down the former home of the American Folk Art Museum on West 53^rd Street in Manhattan, opponents launched a petition asking MoMA officials to reconsider the decision.

The petition was launched by New Haven, CT resident, Robert Bundy, and has accrued over 2,000 signatures. In a letter written to MoMA’s director, Glenn D. Lowry, and the museum’s chief architecture curator, Barry Bergdoll, Bundy asks that MoMA preserve the building rather than raze it, which he claims would be an architectural loss for the city of New York.

The building in debate was designed by notable New York-based architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien to house the Folk Art Museum. The project was completed in 2001 but after falling into financial turmoil, the Folk Art Museum decided to sell the building to MoMA and move to a smaller location.

The decision to level the structure, which features a sculptural bronze façade, is part of MoMA’s overarching expansion plans. Officials claim that the former Folk Art Museum building doesn’t mesh well with MoMA’s neighboring sleek, glass façade. The Folk Art building is also set back slightly from MoMA making expansion logistics more complicated.

In Bundy’s letter he writes, “We ask that the Museum of Modern Art reconsider its position and save the former American Folk Art Museum. The destruction of the building will result in MoMA no longer being regarded as a protector and promoter of the arts.” The petition can be found on change.org’s website.