TAN & M&H Advisor guides to 2019

The Shed under construction in New York © Photo: Brett Beyer. Diller Scofidio + Renfro, lead architect and Rockwell Group, collaborating architect.

Gareth Harris, Top ten new museums and major extensions due to open in 2019, The Art Newspaper, 20 December 2019

A MoMA expansion, the opening of the Humboldt Forum, the unveiling of the National Museum of Qatar and a new Bauhaus Museum are just some of the highlights of the year ahead.

National Museum of Qatar, Doha
Opening 28 March. Cost undisclosed

The long-awaited National Museum of Qatar “will give voice to Qatar’s heritage while celebrating its future”, according to a project statement. The museum is organised in three chronological “chapters”: Beginnings (the geological period prior to humans inhabiting the peninsula); Life in Qatar; and Building the Nation. Heritage objects on display include the Pearl Carpet of Baroda, which was commissioned in 1865. The French architect Jean Nouvel’s interlocking disc design, inspired by the desert rose, is bound to make the building an essential cultural destination in the Gulf.

Muzeum Susch, Susch, Switzerland
Opening 2 January. Cost undisclosed

Grazyna Kulczyk, one of Poland’s most prominent contemporary art collectors (and reportedly the country’s richest woman), is launching a private museum in the remote town of Susch in the Swiss Alps. Located on the former site of a 12th-century monastery, the museum encompasses more than 1,500 sq. m of gallery space. Muzeum Susch, which will have a residency programme, is billed as a new “kind of laboratory”, adopting experimental approaches to contemporary art. The project is being funded by Kulczyk.

Norton Museum of Art expansion, West Palm Beach
Opening 9 February. Cost $100m

The firm Foster + Partners is giving the Norton its most extensive facelift in its 78-year history. The expansion, which includes a new “lush sculpture garden”, provides a “growing but culturally underserved community” with an up-to-date centre, according to a project statement. The revamp includes more than 11,000 sq. m of extra gallery space and a new building that reorients the main entrance. The vast Ruth and Carl Shapiro Great Hall will serve as the museum’s “living room” and community space, while the historic houses on the campus edge will house artists in residence.

The Shed, New York
Opening Spring. Cost $550m

New art is on the agenda at a new interdisciplinary arts centre on Manhattan’s West Side. “The original idea was relatively simple: provide a place for artists working in all disciplines to make and present work for audiences from all walks of life,” says Alex Poots, the chief executive. The Shed’s outer movable shell, part of the Diller Scofidio + Renfro design (in collaboration with the Rockwell Group), coasts on steel tracks, doubling the building’s footprint. New commissions include a collaboration between Gerhard Richter and the composer Steve Reich, and a US music history concert series organised by the film-maker Steve McQueen.

Museum of Modern Art, New York
Opening summer. Cost $450m

The Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA’s) multi-year expansion project is adding 30% more space for displays—an extra 15,000 sq. m. The architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro have also enlarged the entrance and display areas on the upper floors. A new circulation network will “knit together the expansion spaces with the lobbies”, says the architect Elizabeth Diller. There are also new flexible spaces dedicated to contemporary design, performance and film. MoMA’s 2019 programme is devoted to showing works from the collection.

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