Charrette Submission for The Museum of Modern Art Expansion, New York, NY (View of open plaza, ground level)

Rem Koolhaas

1997

A collage on paper in which Rem Koolhaas stages a proposed ground‑level plaza for MoMA’s expansion, using cutout figures and bold geometric planes to explore how people, circulation, and urban context might inhabit the new space.

A deep, slanted black canopy cuts across the view, its thin columns and scattered magazine‑cut figures giving the scene a theatrical, almost cinematic emptiness while textured photomontage walls and a distant car suggest the surrounding city beyond.

The piece shows Koolhaas’s use of collage and scenographic representation to rethink museum architecture as a contested public arena, reflecting late‑20th‑century debates about programmatic flexibility, urban engagement, and how architecture communicates social life.

Palette

Exhibitions

The New City: Architecture and Urban Renewal

1967

Architecture in the New York Area

1952

Architecture of Museums

1968

Modern Architecture for the Modern School

1942