New Museum’s Expanded Home to Open in March 2026, Marking a New Phase on the Bowery
The New Museum will reopen in March 2026 with an OMA-designed expansion that doubles its footprint and reshapes its Bowery campus.
The New Museum will reopen its doors on March 21, 2026, unveiling a major expansion that doubles the institution’s footprint and signals a renewed phase for one of New York’s most influential contemporary art spaces.
Designed by OMA under partner Shohei Shigematsu, in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas, the new 60,000–square-foot building extends the museum’s presence along the Bowery while integrating seamlessly with its original SANAA–designed structure. Together, the two buildings form a rare architectural pairing by living Pritzker Prize–winning architects.
The expansion brings expanded gallery space, new circulation routes, and purpose-built venues for public programs, including a seventh-floor Sky Room and a 74-seat Forum. It also establishes a permanent home for NEW INC, the museum’s cultural incubator, alongside dedicated studios for artists-in-residence.
“Our new building signals a redoubled commitment to new art and new ideas,” said Lisa Phillips, the museum’s director, describing the expansion as an extension of the New Museum’s long-standing role as a site for experimentation and risk-taking.
Opening Exhibition: New Humans
The reopening will be anchored by New Humans: Memories of the Future, a sweeping exhibition spanning the entire expanded museum. Bringing together more than 200 artists, writers, scientists, architects, and filmmakers, the exhibition examines how shifting technological and social conditions have reshaped ideas of what it means to be human.
New and recent works by artists including Hito Steyerl, Pierre Huyghe, Wangechi Mutu, and Anicka Yi will appear alongside works by twentieth-century figures such as Francis Bacon and Hannah Höch, tracing evolving visions of the future across generations.
In parallel, the museum will debut several long-term, site-specific commissions, including a façade work by Tschabalala Self, a monumental installation by Klára Hosnedlová for the new Atrium Stair, and a public plaza work by Sarah Lucas.
A Moment of Transition
The reopening arrives after years of construction delays and organizational recalibration, and it positions the New Museum at a turning point. While the expanded building asserts institutional continuity, it also follows a period of leadership transition after the museum’s reopening phase—underscoring how physical expansion and governance change often move in tandem for large cultural institutions.
Free admission will be offered during opening weekend on March 21 and 22, welcoming visitors from across New York City into the newly expanded space.
Nearly fifty years after its founding, the New Museum’s return to the Bowery is less a restart than a reset: a larger platform for new art, built to absorb the pressures—and possibilities—of the next era.
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