NYC’s Studio Museum, a Harlem institution, to reopen in 2025

Pride and promotion of the African-American cultural identity are the guiding principles of the Studio Museum in Harlem. From its first rented location on the second floor of a building at 2033 Fifth Avenue, opened in 1968 at the behest of a group of artists, activists and philanthropists to give voice to that “black” culture struggling to find a place in mainstream channels, to its current site at 144 West 125th Street in the heart of Harlem where the institution moved in 1979, for over fifty years Studio Museum has been a reference point for artists of African descent and a hub for multidisciplinary reflection and debate on contemporary art and society. 

In 2017, thanks to public funding and philanthropic contributions, the Museum started to turn its dream of expansion into reality: David Adjaye, with his New York team and in collaboration with the Cooper Robertson studio, realised the design for a new building to replace the existing one. In 2018, as work began, the Museum closed while continuing to develop its activities in “satellite” locations in Harlem and elsewhere.The new building will be inaugurated in the autumn of 2025: in addition to the permanent collection (around 9,000 works over a period of two hundred years, including paintings, installations, sculptures, photographs and multimedia works), it will also house substantially increased exhibition and public spaces (for artists-in-residence, education and recreation). The new building draws inspiration from the material and chromatic characteristics of the lively Harlem district. A collage of overlapping volumes of different sizes, single and double height, plays with traditional building elements (doors, openings, windowsills) and characterises the precast concrete façade in dark grey tones, where large glazed surfaces create a continuous visual interconnection with the street. The building is distributed over seven levels. On the lower level are cafeteria, services and a conference and performance hall; on the ground-floor, the reception area, a shop and an exhibition space; on the second-third floor, workshop spaces, an education centre and exhibition galleries to accommodate even large-scale works; on the fourth floor, exhibition spaces and rooms for artists-in-residence; on the fifth floor, flexible rooms for special events; on the roof, a public terrace with green and exhibition areas.  

Inside, the project envisages fluid and interconnected spaces, where art is seamlessly mixed with everyday life: exhibition galleries and spaces for artists in residence are connected to educational environments, allowing an organic interweaving of creativity, artistic production and learning.