New York Designs
Group Tour
Sandra Wheeler, Matter Architecture Practice; Corinne Ulmann, Maya Lin Studio; John Kuo Wei Tchen, exhibition co-curator and co-founder of MoCA; Cynthia Lee, Vice President of Exhibition, Programs & Collections; and Alicia Cheng, mgmt. design
Tuesday October 27, 2009
5:00 p.m.
Museum of Chinese in America
215 Centre Street
A tour of MoCA will spotlight the challenges and considerations of developing a small organization into a national museum, the museum’s relationship to the neighborhood, community, and culture of the city, and the means by which the architecture and the exhibitions embrace sustainable strategies and enrich narratives key to communicating MoCA to a broad and diverse public.
Formerly occupying a couple of rooms in a converted school on Mulberry Street, MoCA has expanded six-fold into a new facility designed by Maya Lin. From its community-based roots, MoCA has emerged as a national institution, occupying a 14,000 square-foot space in a former machine shop. Referencing the traditional Chinese house, at the heart of the museum is a skylit courtyard, around which a new core exhibition narrates the diverse layers of the Chinese experience while examining America’s journey as a nation of immigrants.
Further extending the schematic metaphor of a house, the exhibition’s design—designed by Matter Architecture Practice with exhibition graphics by mgmt. design—structures the content as a chronological journey through a series of rooms, each staging a moment in the Chinese-American experience. Portals from each room into the court contain commissioned media portrait pieces of selected individuals telling their experience of immigration, adapting, or integrating into American culture—voices of the house’s inhabitants through the ages.
Leading the tour will be Sandra Wheeler, a principal of Matter Architecture Practice and exhibition designer and Alicia Cheng, principal, mgmt. design, exhibition graphics designer, who will discuss the design of the permanent galleries and how the exhibition integrates itself with the building’s architecture and seeks to communicate the museum’s mission. Joining them will be Corinne Ulmann, design project manager from Maya Lin Studio, who will discuss the new building and the concept behind its design. John Kuo Wei Tchen, permanent exhibition co-curator, writer, senior historian (and co-founder of MoCA), and currently Professor, A/P/A Studies at the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at The Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University will discuss the founding and development of the museum and a brief narrative of the core exhibition. Cynthia Lee, permanent exhibition co-curator, writer, and Vice President of Exhibition, Programs & Collections at MoCA will introduce the mission of the museum and how it situates itself within a specific community and reaches beyond to embrace the public at large.
Bialosky and Partners were the architects of record for the project.
Reservations are required. Due to the limited number of tickets and to facilitate fair access across our membership, reservations are limited to members only. Upper level members, including League Circle firms, are limited to two reservations. Reservations will be given on a first-come, first-served basis, beginning at 10:00 a.m., Tuesday, October 20. Reservations received before 10:00 a.m. on October 20 will not be honored. Please email anderson@archleague.org. Further program information will be given upon confirmation.
This program was made possible in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
