The Museum of Arts and Design at 2 Columbus Circle Opens

by Zach Mortice
Associate Editor

Summary: Rechristened as the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), Edward Durrell Stone’s 2 Columbus Circle in Manhattan opened to the public September 27. A lengthy preservation debate about the merits of Stone’s flamboyantly proto-Postmodern marble tower on Columbus Circle has given way to a shimmering terra cotta and glass design by Brad Cloepfil, AIA, of Allied Works. In his most important commission to date, Cloepfil inserted interlocking incisions of glass into the formerly stoic and opaque façade of the building and still maintained the uniquely curved massing of the building as it embraces Columbus Circle.

Built by A&P heir Huntington Hartford as the “anti-MoMA” Gallery of Modern Art in 1964, 2 Columbus Circle foundered as a museum and became the property of the City of New York in 1998. In 2002, the MAD (previously the American Crafts Museum) purchased it, and eventually hired Allied Works. Preservationists, whose objections to renovating 2 Columbus Circle revived the best and worst of the mid-20th century conflicts between opposing schools of Modernism, lost their final court battle in 2005, paving the way for the MAD’s new home.