The Queens Museum, which reopened late last year following an expansion, serves one of the most ethnically diverse places in the world. The New York City borough of Queens has a population of 2.3 million and includes people from over 100 countries, with nearly 140 languages spoken.
The museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park is housed in a building that was created for the 1939 World’s Fair and was also used by the United Nations General Assembly. The museum previously shared the site with an ice rink but now occupies the whole building.
The redeveloped museum is intended to be more inviting and open and to provide more space for community events and activities. There is a revamped entrance on Grand Central Parkway on the west and the building has been integrated with the park on the east.
The museum has more than doubled in size to 105,000sq ft and now features six galleries ranging from 2,400sq ft to 8,000sq ft. The galleries surround a large central space that hosts a variety of activities.
There is also a visible storage area, education suite, theatre space and a community partnership gallery. And the museum has created an area featuring six artists’ studios.
Phase two of the expansion will involve integrating a branch of Queens Borough Public Library into the building.
One of the museum’s main attractions is the remarkable Panorama of the City of New York, which is on permanent display and is the world’s largest scale model.
This was developed for the 1964 World’s Fair and was updated in 1992. It features each of the city’s 895,000 buildings erected before 1992.
Current exhibitions at the museum include work by Accra Shepp, an African-American photographer based in Queens who has been documenting the coastlines of New York’s five boroughs since 2008; a show about the Los Angeles Poverty Department, a performance group that is mainly made up of homeless or formerly homeless people; and an exhibition based on a public art commission that Andy Warhol carried out for the 1964 New York World’s Fair where the artist enlarged mugshots from a police booklet featuring the 13 most wanted criminals of 1962.
The work sparked a minor scandal and was painted over by fair officials shortly after it was installed.
What were the main aims of the expansion?
Tom Finkelpearl: Firstly, I believe that in order to have a larger museum audience and to draw people from a wider range you have to have about two hours of stuff to do, so we needed to expand.
Secondly, we did not have a space that expressed the mission of the museum and one of its ideas is openness. Anyone who walks in the door now can see it – there is a large open space in the middle and this has been a huge success as a place for community events, dances, and so on.
Thirdly, there were aspects of the museum that were at capacity and we needed more space for certain kinds of programming.
How is this philosophy of openness reflected in the design of the redeveloped museum?
We are in a big park that is vibrant and filled with energy but before the redevelopment we looked like we were closed to it, we did not have an open face to it.
On the other side of the museum is the highway and the entrance on this side was very unsightly. We have moved some trees and there is now a huge sign that says Queens Museum. This has been enormously important for the profile of the museum and embedding the location of the museum into people’s consciousness.
What type of audience do you get at the museum?
It is very diverse, much more than most American museums. We want to have a regional audience but are very dedicated to the idea of not losing touch with our local audience.
What are the aims of the temporary exhibitions programme?
It is not all local by any stretch of the imagination but it is very diverse. It is a mixture of exhibitions reflecting contemporary, multicultural Queens and the history of the site. It is local and international at the same time and that is not contradictory. Having stuff that is new and is happening here all the time is important.
How was your relationship with the project’s architect?
Grimshaw was really able to listen to what we were up to here and really understood the museum. It is not just about having a good architect, it is having an architect that understands you.
The museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park is housed in a building that was created for the 1939 World’s Fair and was also used by the United Nations General Assembly. The museum previously shared the site with an ice rink but now occupies the whole building.
The redeveloped museum is intended to be more inviting and open and to provide more space for community events and activities. There is a revamped entrance on Grand Central Parkway on the west and the building has been integrated with the park on the east.
The museum has more than doubled in size to 105,000sq ft and now features six galleries ranging from 2,400sq ft to 8,000sq ft. The galleries surround a large central space that hosts a variety of activities.
There is also a visible storage area, education suite, theatre space and a community partnership gallery. And the museum has created an area featuring six artists’ studios.
Phase two of the expansion will involve integrating a branch of Queens Borough Public Library into the building.
One of the museum’s main attractions is the remarkable Panorama of the City of New York, which is on permanent display and is the world’s largest scale model.
This was developed for the 1964 World’s Fair and was updated in 1992. It features each of the city’s 895,000 buildings erected before 1992.
Current exhibitions at the museum include work by Accra Shepp, an African-American photographer based in Queens who has been documenting the coastlines of New York’s five boroughs since 2008; a show about the Los Angeles Poverty Department, a performance group that is mainly made up of homeless or formerly homeless people; and an exhibition based on a public art commission that Andy Warhol carried out for the 1964 New York World’s Fair where the artist enlarged mugshots from a police booklet featuring the 13 most wanted criminals of 1962.
The work sparked a minor scandal and was painted over by fair officials shortly after it was installed.
What were the main aims of the expansion?
Tom Finkelpearl: Firstly, I believe that in order to have a larger museum audience and to draw people from a wider range you have to have about two hours of stuff to do, so we needed to expand.
Secondly, we did not have a space that expressed the mission of the museum and one of its ideas is openness. Anyone who walks in the door now can see it – there is a large open space in the middle and this has been a huge success as a place for community events, dances, and so on.
Thirdly, there were aspects of the museum that were at capacity and we needed more space for certain kinds of programming.
How is this philosophy of openness reflected in the design of the redeveloped museum?
We are in a big park that is vibrant and filled with energy but before the redevelopment we looked like we were closed to it, we did not have an open face to it.
On the other side of the museum is the highway and the entrance on this side was very unsightly. We have moved some trees and there is now a huge sign that says Queens Museum. This has been enormously important for the profile of the museum and embedding the location of the museum into people’s consciousness.
What type of audience do you get at the museum?
It is very diverse, much more than most American museums. We want to have a regional audience but are very dedicated to the idea of not losing touch with our local audience.
What are the aims of the temporary exhibitions programme?
It is not all local by any stretch of the imagination but it is very diverse. It is a mixture of exhibitions reflecting contemporary, multicultural Queens and the history of the site. It is local and international at the same time and that is not contradictory. Having stuff that is new and is happening here all the time is important.
How was your relationship with the project’s architect?
Grimshaw was really able to listen to what we were up to here and really understood the museum. It is not just about having a good architect, it is having an architect that understands you.
Project data
- Cost $69m
- Main funder City of New York
- Architect Grimshaw Architects
- Executive architect Ammann & Whitney
- Structural engineer Ammann & Whitney
- Speciality structures M. Ludvik
- Engineering services engineer Buro Happold
- Museum consultant Lord Cultural Resources
- Landscape architect Mathews Nielsen
