New Museum’s OMA Expansion Nears Reopening, Doubling the Institution to 120,000 Square Feet
New York’s New Museum is poised to reopen with a long-anticipated expansion by OMA that will nearly double the institution’s size to 120,000 square feet, marking a major new chapter for the non-collecting museum known for introducing artists to the city at pivotal moments in their careers.
The reopening arrives later than planned. The museum’s return was delayed from an expected 2025 debut, following a timeline that has shifted since OMA was selected in 2019. The original target had been 2022, but construction did not begin until that year.
Designed as a counterpart to the museum’s existing 2007 building by Japanese architects SANAA, the new structure aims for integration rather than contrast. At the center is an atrium anchored by a large staircase that improves circulation through the galleries while also creating a dramatic volume for ambitious installations. The expanded layout allows the museum to treat the galleries as a continuous exhibition environment or to divide them into discrete rooms with separate entrances, a flexibility that can support multiple curatorial rhythms at once.
The addition also brings new behind-the-scenes infrastructure. A studio for artists-in-residence has been introduced, alongside offices for New Inc., the museum’s cultural incubator focused on new media. Front-of-house functions have been reorganized as well: the former lobby gallery has been repurposed for coat check and the gift shop.
A new restaurant is also on the horizon. The museum has announced a 90-seat venue by artist, writer, and cook Julia Sherman, slated to open later this spring.
The building’s expanded scale is already shaping how work can be presented. Among the new spaces is a fourth-floor gallery with 30-foot-high ceilings and no columns, a configuration suited to monumental projects. During previews, that gallery has been hosting Anicka Yi’s “Intelligent Floating Machines Inspired By Nature.”
The museum is also continuing its Façade Sculpture Program, a signature initiative since 2007 that places commissioned works on the building’s exterior. The current installation is “Art Lovers,” a relief sculpture by American artist Tschabalala Self (b. 1990) depicting an embracing Black couple.
To inaugurate the reopened museum, artistic director Massimiliano Gioni has organized “New Humans: Memories of the Future,” an exhibition that spans all three gallery floors across both buildings. The show’s scale underscores the institution’s renewed capacity to mount sweeping, research-driven presentations.
Founded in 1977 as a one-room gallery on Hudson Street, the New Museum has built its reputation on championing contemporary art without maintaining a permanent collection, and it has a history of giving early New York City solo shows to artists including Jeff Koons and Ana Mendieta. With the OMA expansion now in place, the museum’s next phase will be defined not only by what it shows, but by the new architectural possibilities for how it can show it.
