by James Murdock

The renovation and expansion of the Museum of Modern Art at 11 W. 53rd St. was among the most important architectural and construction jobs of the last decade - not just because it came at a time when museum buildings were often attracting more attention than the artwork displayed within them.

What made the commission so prized was that it represented a potentially rewarding opportunity to solve the museum's nuanced programmatic needs within unforgiving site constraints. It also boasted a generous budget.

Although MoMA is mum on its exact price tag, which is rumored to have risen, the project likely represents a large portion of an ongoing $858 million capital campaign.

Construction should be complete in 2004, and the museum is expected to reoccupy its building by late 2004 or early 2005.

Home to MoMA since 1939, the building at 11 W. 53rd St. had already been revamped several times, most notably in 1964 using a design by architect Philip Johnson, who added its renowned outdoor sculpture garden. This time the museum's trustees sought a design that would both preserve the building's history and accommodate its future.

The selection of architect Yoshio Taniguchi in 1997 surprised many observers.

Although he had designed several museums in his native Japan, he was not widely known here. His aesthetic, which is spare and minimalist, could not have contrasted more with the boldly sculptural and deeply symbolic style that was then in vogue, as exemplified by the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, and the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

But when MoMA reopens - construction began in 2001 after substantial demolition and site prep work - Taniguchi's buildings will likely impress even his most skeptical critics: something that is increasingly apparent as it takes shape in Midtown. The word building, in fact, does not adequately describe Taniguchi's emerging masterwork.

"It's like a village," said Jean Solomon, executive director of construction in MoMA's new building department. Totaling 630,000 sq. ft., nearly double its original size, the complex will contain a mixture of space uses, from galleries to retail areas, restaurants, offices and educational facilities. It will even incorporate an existing residential tower.

"There's new construction and there's also renovation work," Solomon said. "Splicing them together makes this project much more complex."

Regardless of how masterful Taniguchi's plan is, however, his vision could not be successfully realized without the skilled craftsmanship and ingenuity displayed by the nearly 70 design, engineering and construction firms involved in the project.

The challenge is most heavily borne by general contractor AMEC Construction Management Inc. "We used to say we were building a Swiss watch, but I think we've moved beyond a Swiss watch," said Lawrence Capelli, AMEC's senior vice president of construction management. "The [construction] tolerances are a completely different world."

Less Is More Effort

Realizing Taniguchi's aesthetic of simple lines and flat surfaces is paradoxically quite difficult. There will be no crown moldings or baseboards, for example, to hide interior wall junctions, and this demands perfection.

"Yoshio's work is completely about its details," said Gregory Clement, a principal of consulting architect Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, PC and managing principal of the MoMA project. "Usually when you say detail, it makes you think there's a lot happening, but in this case it's exactly the opposite and that's really what makes it quite beautiful. It's unusual for a domestic practice to specify the level of tolerances in the finishes as rigorously as Yoshio wanted."

Spanning much of the block between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, the revamped MoMA will feature restored historic facades on 53rd Street and present an entirely new face on 54th Street. In order to unify the 54th Street side, the buildings will be connected by an unadorned glass curtain wall.

"It's a signature Taniguchi - the kind of light and airy effect he wanted to achieve," Solomon said. "It's a taut skin, but also a veil-like effect."

Though it is a signature element, the taut skin is imminently functional. "It seemed that the given structures had built up 'variety,' but lost their 'tensity' through their long history," Taniguchi said. "I wanted to introduce 'tensity' into the new MoMA, so that it would not become a mere assembly of different types of buildings, but appear as a cohesive organization."

Achieving this tensity required AMEC to maintain an incredibly precise and consistent joint spacing of 3/8 in. between panels in the curtain wall. "If it varied, you'd see (the joint) closing up," said Richard Wolkowitz, vice president of construction management at AMEC. "Everything has been pushed to the limit, looking for a quality and type that is beyond the norm."

Even the tolerances for the curtain wall's fabrication were pushed to their limits. The manufacturers, Permasteelisa S.p.A. subsidiaries Gartner and Permasteelisa Cladding Technologies Ltd., met a standard of 1/32 in. in the extrusion of anodized aluminum panels. They also ensured that all surfaces were thoroughly buffed to remove die marks and present a uniform appearance.

Permasteelisa actually placed its own quality-control representatives inside its suppliers' manufacturing plants to ensure everything ran smoothly. "This wasn't normal," said Roberto Bicchiarelli, the firm's executive vice president. But he added that it was necessary. "There was a tight time schedule and we didn't want to end up with material that couldn't be assembled correctly."

Avoiding Moldy Moderns

It is not just finishes that make the new MoMA such a challenging construction project. Because it is a museum, MoMA demands sophisticated ventilation and climate-control systems, far more stringent than would be found in ordinary commercial or residential buildings.

For example, AMEC is installing two unique HVAC systems. One is temporary and will maintain steady temperature and humidity levels in the building during construction - an uncommon precaution to prevent mold growth, which could damage the artwork.

The permanent system is also unusual. Rather than sharing a common trunk line, each gallery space will be served by separate ducts that feed directly into two machine rooms. Gazing at the labyrinth of pipes in the ceiling below one of these rooms, MoMA's project director William Maloney marveled "It's like Grand Central Terminal."

During construction, AMEC is sealing the ducts in plastic. This will prevent dust from accumulating inside them, which would be disastrous for the wall finishes and the artwork. In fact, it is the construction team's goal to ensure the HVAC system is as unobtrusive as possible.

"In a museum, nobody wants to hear the sound of air coming out of the diffusers or air rushing through the ductwork, and from an architectural standpoint, nobody wants to see the diffusers," said Philip Steiner, a principal of AltieriSeborWieber Consulting Engineers LLC. "We're generally the most successful when nobody knows we were at the project."

John Arfman, vice president of TEC Systems Inc., agreed. When installing and testing the climate control technology, TEC Systems must ensure that the building's temperature never varies more than a degree from 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and that the humidity does not vary more than 2 percentage points from 50 percent.

Climate control is no small chore in MoMA, given that the building's constant circulation of people will generate fluctuating heat and humidity levels that must be countermanded in real time. "We've actually been thrust into the forefront of the project," Arfman said. "In most buildings, we're just an after-thought."

This close coordination between subcontractors - and with MoMA itself, whose curators are working with everyone - is a hallmark of the project and crucial to its success. "It certainly was a group effort," Wolkowitz said. "Everyone will take tremendous pride in being able to say they were a part of it."