New York, NY
Completed 2025
Design Team
Max Worrell, Jejon Yeung, Cohen Hudson, Khant Wai Yan
Collaborators
Lighting Designer: Tillotson Design
Mechanical Engineering: Grumman Butkas
Acoustic: Cerami
AV: Verrex
Contractor: Structure Tone
Nearly 60 years after the original East Wing expansion for the Museum of Modern Art, the renovation of the Founders Room honors its architectural lineage, while creating an unconventional boardroom suited to one of the most significant art museums in the world. Over the years, the character of the original design, which embodied the sleek optimism of mid-century modernism, had been stripped back by a number of renovations, creating an almost clinical space that was less than ideal for viewing art and holding long meetings. Through deceptively simple yet rigorously studied and executed formal and material gestures, it has now been infused with warmth and dignity.
Cherry wood veneer panels bookend the room, lending richness and tactility while referencing modernist design. The wall system finishings double as acoustic buffers, resulting in a multipurpose room that can function as a meeting space, video presentation room, or small gallery. With zero access to daylight, the lighting strategy was recalibrated to support the viewing of art and introduce a sense of spatial expansion overhead. New tabletops were developed with a reconfigurable frame system that supports a range of meeting formats. Paired with chestnut leather Little Giraffe chairs by Arne Jacobsen from 1959 and a deep oxblood-colored broadloom carpet, the room gains a new sense of softness and cohesion. A continuous art rail wraps the perimeter, establishing a clear datum and enabling artworks to be installed, discussed, and removed with ease.
The renovation restores the welcoming, domestic spirit of the original design and preserves MoMa’s institutional gravitas.
Photographs
Eric Petschek