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Museum of the Moving Image Gets Major Facelift

Expansion of the Queens-based Museum of the Moving Image will allow the 27-year-old building to double in size.

By Tom Nicholson

An expansion and renovation at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, will double the institution’s size and infuse it with new media technology.

Dedicated to motion pictures, television and digital media, the museum has inhabited a 50,000-sq-ft  building at the former Kaufman Astoria Studios site at 35th Avenue and 36th Street since opening in 1981.

The museum was last renovated in 1986. The current project will allow it to handle attendance that has grown from about 60,000 in 2000 to nearly 100,000 in 2007.

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“We were bursting at the seams,” says museum director Rochelle Slovin. “There were traffic circulation problems throughout the museum. We needed more space and better technology infrastructure.”

Construction started in February on the $65 million project, which includes construction of a 37,700-sq-ft, three-floor addition to the north side of the existing building and a 10,000-sq-ft outdoor screening theater.

Inside are 18,800 sq ft of interior renovations to the existing structure, which will include installation of new film and digital media theaters and screening rooms as well as additional exhibit and educational space.

The job is scheduled for completion in fall 2009. Brooklyn-based Leeser Architecture LLC designed the project, and New York-based F.J. Sciame Construction Co. is the general contractor.

This summer, Sciame is completing shoring work in preparation for underpinning the foundation, says Robert Cortiglia, the firm’s project manager. “We expect to be framing by winter,” he adds.

Construction began in February on the $65 million expansion and renovation of the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.

The steel-frame addition will be clad in pale blue, aluminum panels. The striking design, described by architect Thomas Leeser as “contemporary and fluid,” calls for a few atypical building materials. “There are a lot of materials being used that required installation techniques that were new to us,” Cortiglia says. Installation of Corian for interior cladding and windows made of a special glass that varies tint in exposure to light have presented “a learning experience” for the contractor and subcontractors on the project, he adds.

Sciame is veteran firm in construction of contemporary cultural institutions in New York. Its museum-building experience includes New York’s New Museum of Contemporary Art; the Bowery, completed last year; and the Museum of Art and Design, Columbus Circle, completed earlier this year.

“Museum projects are always challenging,” Cortiglia says. “There is a higher level of finish required, everything has to be perfect and every little detail means something.”

Bonnie Andersen, project manager for New York-based Levien & Co., the owner’s representative, says the museum is remaining open while work is ongoing, which means that “we have to arrange schedules so work doesn’t cause a disturbance.”

The 18,800 sq ft of interior renovations to the existing structure will include new film and digital media theaters and screen rooms.

Cortiglia adds, “We are fortunate that there a yard at the site which we use as a work area, allowing us to avoid road lane closures.”

Owner and architect closely collaborated during the design phase, “struggling between what the budget would allow and what the museum needed,” Lesser says. The architect, who won the design contract through a competition the owner initiated as a means to short list design candidates, proposed to integrate digital technology throughout the museum and to solve traffic problems by relocating the entrance from 36th Street to 35th Avenue.

“It was a brilliant idea, giving the museum a more capacious entry with higher ceilings,” Slovin says. The architect “integrated the moving image into the design,” she adds.

The design went through several incarnations as Leeser and city officials worked to shoehorn design ideas into a budget buffeted by soaring materials prices, particularly for steel, Slovin says. “It was a budget-driven process,” she says. “The design went through changes as inflation ate up the budget.”

The renovation also will help to mitigate traffic problems by moving the entrance from 36th Street to 35th Avenue.

The design process “started initially as a smaller project, but it grew as we worked to find solutions to problems,” Leeser says. “We have worked closely with the owner on this project.”

Interior design includes several exhibits, such as 216 video monitors that will cover the walls and doors of the entry. There’s also an 8-ft-tall and 50-ft-long wall that will present a seamless panorama of projected video images.

Interior fit-out includes a staircase of Corian that leads to a 1,700-sq-ft video-screening amphitheater; 4,100-sq-ft digital media gallery; 9,000-sq-ft education center equipped with a 71-seat film and digital-screening room; 264-seat film theater and orchestra pit equipped for 35mm, 70mm or 16mm film and digital images; and a cafe.

Slovin says the renovation will transform the building from being solely a structure that houses the museum to being an active part of it. “The moving image will be organically built into this building,” she says.