Renowned auction house Sotheby’s has unveiled a dramatic OMA/Shohei Shigematsu-designed expansion and re-imagination of their New York City headquarters. Together with OMA Associate Christy Cheng, Shigematsu has redesigned the headquarters to include vast new exhibition galleries for fine art, precious objects, luxury goods, and more. Comprising 40 galleries of varying size across four floors, the new space will increase Sotheby’s exhibition space from 67,000 square feet to 90,000 square feet.
In the proposal, nine galleries will facilitate discreet private sales for dedicated small objects such as watches and jewelry. Three two-story spaces will be set aside for exhibitions, along with a 150-foot-long space for full collections, according to The New York Times. The new space will include “dynamic repertoire” of "spatial conditions", including a white cube, double height, enfilade, corridor cascade, octagonal, and an L-shaped space.
The project is expected to cost $55 million according to Sotheby’s. Unique for a gallery space, the redesign will also include the presence of concrete columns in some galleries, which Shigematsu explains, reflects the history of the space. Along with the new gallery spaces, the redesign will include a coffee bar to the lobby.
We wanted to embody Sotheby’s ambition to reinvigorate and enhance the client experience by introducing high-flexibility through reorganization of programs and diversification of gallery spaces. The new headquarters is designed for openness and discovery—all public facing programs are shifted to lower levels, unlocking the public potential of the building. A taxonomy of galleries can be used separately or as clusters to allow curatorial freedom, driven by business model shifts and expanding repertoire of programming.
-Shohei Shigematsu, OMA
The gallery is expected to open on May 3rd, 2019.
News of the scheme comes shortly after OMA released a construction update for their performing arts center in Taipei. The firm also recently celebrated the topping out of its stacked RAI Nhow Hotel in Amsterdam. The firm's founder Rem Koolhaas was also recently featured on the album for electronica band Tempers.
News via: OMA
