The New Museum’s OMA-Designed Expansion Opens This Spring
Why the Bowery Is New York’s Art Destination in 2026
This spring, one of New York’s most forward-looking cultural institutions enters a bold new era. On March 21, 2026, New Museum unveils its long-anticipated expansion on the Bowery, a striking new building designed by OMA, led by Shohei Shigematsu in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas, and executive architect Cooper Robertson.
Exterior View, Rendering of the expanded New Museum. Courtesy OMA/bloomimages.de
Rising alongside the museum’s iconic SANAA-designed stack, the 60,000-square-foot addition doubles the institution’s gallery space and creates one of the rare architectural dialogues between two living Pritzker Prize–winning practices. The result is a fluid, vertical campus for contemporary art, defined by expanded circulation, a dramatic Atrium Stair, new public plazas and a reimagined sense of openness at street level.
Galleries & Atrium Stair, rendering of the expanded New Museum. Courtesy OMA/bloomimages.de
Inside, the museum’s ambitions are equally expansive. New spaces include an enlarged Sky Room with panoramic city views, a purpose-built home for cultural incubator NEW INC, artists’ studios, and a 74-seat Forum designed for talks, performances and debate. A new full-service restaurant, OMA-designed and operated by the Oberon Group, anchors the lobby, reinforcing the museum’s role as a social as well as cultural destination.
The reopening is marked by an institution-wide exhibition, New Humans: Memories of the Future, an ambitious survey spanning more than 200 artists, writers, architects and filmmakers. Moving between historical and contemporary visions, the exhibition examines how technology, science and shifting social conditions have reshaped ideas of what it means to be human. Alongside this, major site-specific commissions by artists including Tschabalala Self, Klára Hosnedlová and Sarah Lucas will be permanently embedded throughout the building and its public spaces.
Rendering of the expanded New Museum. Courtesy OMA/bloomimages.de
For travellers, the timing couldn’t be better. Opening weekend (March 21–22) will offer free admission, inviting both New Yorkers and international visitors to experience the new building, exhibitions and public programs firsthand. Situated at the intersection of the Bowery and Prince Street, the New Museum remains a vital stop for anyone interested in contemporary art, architecture and the evolving cultural fabric of downtown Manhattan.
As New York continues to reinvent itself, the expanded New Museum stands as a confident statement of intent: a place for experimentation, risk-taking and new ideas and a compelling reason to add the Bowery to any art-led city itinerary in 2026.
235 Bowery, New York, NY 10002
