For Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, who won the competition for this museum, the challenge lay in reconciling the spatial programme with the building regulations of New York City on a site only 20 metres wide and wedged in between other structures. A vertical development was only logical, therefore, and the architects pursued their image of a series of stepped containers set on top of each other. The New Museum extends over nine levels in all. The ground floor opens on to the Bowery with a glazed front and affords access to the auditorium below and to the three gallery levels and other facilities above.