Folk, Modern, and Facade: MoMA and the Afterlife of the American Folk Art Museum Building

Left: David Shankbone, American Folk Art Museum, 2006

Right: Ajay Suresh, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), 2021

By Sam Brady-Myerov

New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) absorbs nearly an entire Midtown block in glass, steel, and stone. Although New York City architecture is often defined by height, MoMA is notable for its length. The museum stretches from the Peggy and David Rockefeller Building to the west to the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building to the east, with the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at its center.^[1] In 2019, MoMA opened its most recent expansion, spreading westward into the lower floors of the neighboring skyscraper 53 West 53. Crucially, the expansion also occupied the former site of the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM), which had stood in between.^[2]