Curbed Inside: Hell Yes, New Museum Revealed!

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Curbed Inside visits the interior of a structure with an eye towards revealing the design and architecture. If you've got a project you'd like Curbed to consider for shooting, drop us a line.

Feel the future.

The New Museum opens to the public on Saturday with a free kick-off extravaganza (did you get your Target-sponsored reservation?), but the gang at 235 Bowery invited the press over this morning for a little preview. Finally, we were able to crawl into the womb of SANAA's crazy minimalist creation, and what we found was—dramatic pause—an art museum. What, you were expecting a Japanese palace where animé fantasies spring to life in a burst of rainbows? Us too, but we digress. In truth, the New Museum felt small, like you could knock the whole thing out in a half-hour before Sunday brunch. But the views (to the LES, Tribeca, Soho, FiDi and beyond) are killer, and the place sells Cheese Puffs, so it's pretty much a must-see.

The lobby gift shop, which oddly could be the building's grandest architectural achievement. Very cool. By the way, 10% discount on catalogues for inaugural exhibitions!

We booked this room for our Super Bowl party.

Seventh Floor event space (The Sky Terrace), looking towards BLUE, THOR et al.

Seventh Floor, looking downtown.

Out on the patio, looking west to Soho.

A preservationist's dream: Trump behind bars.

That's right, we broke in to the restricted sixth floor. And what treasures we found in those staff offices!

Wall of windows, fifth floor.

The satellite Genius Bar location. Total j/k. It's the fifth-floor resource center! No, you cannot check your Gmail on them. We tried.

Learn, my little contemporary artists, learn!

Fourth floor gallery. The New Museum's first celebrity guest?

Ceiling of fourth floor gallery.

The cage (aka Sam Durant's ...For People Who Refuse to Knuckle Down, 2004).

The most over-hyped stairwell in town? Cue the Goldberger: "The most exciting space in the building is only four feet wide and some fifty feet high, and is tucked behind the elevators: it contains a stairway connecting the third- and fourth-floor galleries. I have never been anywhere at once so eerily narrow and so gloriously monumental." Sure, buddy.

Third floor gallery, discussing Nobuko Tsuchiya's Nike's Sister, 2004. Or, as we know it, Chocolate Pudding DInosaur Egg.

Second floor gallery.

Second floor gallery, Marc André Robinson's Myth Monolith, 2007. If you see only one chair sculpture this year...

Fidel was(n't) here. The hallway of the basement theater floor.

Seating area of the theater space. Needless to say, some freaky shit will be shown here.

Besides the art, there's only two spots in the building with any color: the elevators, and...

...the basement level bathrooms. The cherry blossoms help you tinkle.

Oh, one more thing: Hell Yes!
· The New New Museum [newmuseum.org]
· New Museum Trifecta Blowout: Dear Bowery, Hell Yes! [Curbed]

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