Explore an Early Look at the New Museum’s Breathtaking Expansion, Opening in Early 2026

Exterior rendering of the New Museum’s expansion. (Photo: OMA / bloomimages.de)

In November 2022, the New Museum in lower Manhattan broke ground on a 60,000-square-foot expansion. Some three years later, the monumental undertaking is nearly complete and will finally open for the public in early 2026. Judging from early imagery alone, the expansion will undoubtedly usher in a thrilling new era for the renowned museum, one that has shaped the culture, aesthetics, and status of contemporary art since 1977.

Led by OMA’s Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, the expansion primarily revolves around a new seven-story building. This building remains visually distinct on its surface, boasting a facade with sloping, angular forms and geometric windows that wrap around its edges. On the inside, however, the OMA-designed expansion is seamlessly integrated with the museum’s existing spaces, aligning ceiling heights on the second, third, and fourth floors for uninterrupted connectivity across both buildings. In all, the structure will double the New Museum’s gallery space, while also improving vertical circulation for visitors through a dramatic atrium stairway, complete with views of the surrounding neighborhood.

But this expansion doesn’t just increase the New Museum’s footprint. It also offers stunning new environments in which to engage with art, including an enlarged lobby featuring a bigger bookstore and a full-service restaurant. Just beyond the entrance is a plaza, which will serve as an open-air venue for public art installations, nestled along Bowery and Prince Street. At the heart of this building is the seventh-floor Sky Room, which will also double in size without sacrificing its panoramic views of downtown Manhattan. Featured as well are three additional upper-floor terraces, providing even more opportunities to indulge in the vibrant neighborhood the New Museum calls home.

“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,” Lisa Phillips, the Toby Devan Lewis Director of the New Museum, remarked.

Shigematsu, one of OMA’s architects leading the project, echoed the sentiment: “The New Museum is an incubator for new cultural perspectives and production, and the expansion aims to embody that attitude of openness.”

Indeed, the expansion’s inaugural exhibition, New Humans: Memories of the Future, further embodies that attitude. Featuring artwork by more than 150 international artists, writers, scientists, architects, and filmmakers, the exhibition considers how technological advancements have impacted not just art production, but humanity and society as a whole. Innovative contemporary artists like Wangechi Mutu, Tau Lewis, and Philippe Parreno stand in conversation with modernists such as Salvador Dalí, Francis Bacon, Hannah Höch, and El Lissitzky, resulting in a compelling throughline that traces how optimism, technology, and futurism all coalesce. In all, New Humans is par for the course for the New Museum, whose exhibitions often center around experimental and unexpected topics.

“New Humans is an encyclopedic, interdisciplinary exhibition that continues the New Museum’s engagement with the most pressing issues of today,” Massimiliano Gioni, the museum’s Edlis Neeson Artistic Director, said. “As the museum enters an expansive new chapter in its own history, [the exhibition] highlights the role artists play in interpreting and confronting the critical issues that will shape our collective fate.”

The New Museum originally closed for renovation and construction in March 2024. It plans to reopen in early 2026. To stay updated on timing and to plan your own visit, check out the New Museum website.