© Dean Kaufman
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.