1. Expand with Intent, Not Just Scale

OMA’s design more than doubles the museum’s exhibition space with three floors of column-free galleries — encouraging curatorial experimentation. The new galleries align directly with the original building’s second, third, and fourth floors, unifying circulation and ceiling heights while maximizing flexibility for installations. The takeaway? Expansion should feel intentional, not just spatial. Match new capabilities with meaningful continuity to avoid fragmentation.

2. Create a Conversation Between Old and New

Rather than mimic SANAA’s iconic boxes, OMA introduces a luminous façade of laminated glass and metal mesh that feels distinct yet complementary. The exterior plays with light and visibility, reflecting the city’s energy while offering glimpses inside. It’s a striking juxtaposition — signaling both renewal and continuity at the same time.

3. Rethink the Threshold Experience

A new plaza at Bowery and Prince Street transforms the entry into a civic gesture — a public space designed for gathering, programming, and sculpture. Inside, an expanded bookstore and full-service restaurant turn the ground floor into a destination for community, conversation, and cultural crossover. The threshold — before you even step inside — is part of the story. And it proves that designing for public encounters is key.

OMA’s design more than doubles the museum’s exhibition space with three floors of column-free galleries — encouraging curatorial experimentation. The new galleries align directly with the original building’s second, third, and fourth floors, unifying circulation and ceiling heights while maximizing flexibility for installations. The takeaway? Expansion should feel intentional, not just spatial. Match new capabilities with meaningful continuity to avoid fragmentation.

6. Elevate the Experience — Literally

The museum’s reimagined seventh-floor Sky Room, a private event space, doubles in size, with three new terraces overlooking the Bowery. These outdoor extensions provide space for sculpture, open-air programming, and panoramic views, adding a contemplative, social dimension to the museum experience. In other words, they amplify what indoor spaces can’t.

7. Launch with Vision

Pairing a reimagined space with a reimagined program, the expansion opens with "New Human: Memories of the Future," an ambitious group exhibition featuring more than 150 artists, scientists, and other creatives. Exploring humanity’s evolving relationship with technology, the show reflects the building’s own future-facing sensibility. Can you think of a better way than a landmark exhibition to set the tone and match the promise of the space?

The Bottom Line: Reimagination as Responsibility

Growth, in this case, is not measured in square feet but in potential. OMA’s expansion invites architects, museum leaders, and civic planners to see the New Museum as a study in equilibrium — balancing old and new, openness and intimacy, curation and community. The question is no longer only how to build, but for whom, how, and why. It's about what becomes newly possible. As Lisa Phillips, the museum’s director, puts it: “The New Museum has always been a future-facing museum — not a place for preserving and recording history, but a place where history is made.”

With this expansion, it’s ready to make history once again.