Houston-based Hines Interests (the developers you can thank for the Galleria) are behind the new Jean Nouvel-designed addition to MoMA in NYC (NB it's not clear whether Nouvel will design the galleries themselves or just the main highrise, with MoMA determining who — possibly Yoshi Taniguchi — will design the gallery spaces). Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the Nouvel building marries with the Taniguchi building (whose fall from grace Christopher Hawthorne chronicled in this week's LA Times). We wish Gerald Hines would bend his energies to arty projects closer to home: to, say, the contemporary expansion at MFAH… As for the MoMA deal, we wonder, when director Glen Lowry has admitted that they still don't know what to do with the 50,000 square feet of extra space in their current building (other than fill it with enormous pieces of rolled steel — one thing for sure about Richard Serra, his work can make any cavernous, difficult space sing: Bilbao, Dia:Beacon, and now MoMA), why tack on another 75,000 square feet for exhbihbitions? Will building more galleries, possibly designed by the much-criticized architect of the current galleries, fix the problem? [8/4/07 UPDATE: Hines hasn't confirmed for sure that Nouvel is the architect of the new building, but an announcement is coming very soon and "he is the front runner."]
Go Gerald
