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Re "Overshadowed, and Now Doomed" (Arts pages, April 11), about plans to demolish the former American Folk Art Museum building in Manhattan:
That the finest building on the Museum of Modern Art's campus, recipient of a Best Building in the World award in 2002, will be demolished because it doesn't conform to the museum's vision of uniform glass windows and aligned floor plates says something about Modernism itself.
Known for bold visions, Modernist thinking also did not tolerate difference. If allowed, Le Corbusier would have leveled much of the center of Paris in 1925 to build a series of 60-story towers.
"Architecture is destiny," Roberta Smith, an art critic for The New York Times, wrote critically of the new MoMA in 2006. "It forms an extremely tangible mission statement that communicates an institution's core values."
No matter how MoMA tries to lead in contemporary, "postmodern" art, known for complexity and contradiction, the museum remains "The Modern" in the worst way.
ANDREW WEINSTEIN
New York, April 12, 2013
The writer is an assistant professor of art history at the Fashion Institute of Technology-SUNY.
To the Editor:
Demolishing the existing building may gain the Museum of Modern Art 10,000 square feet of area, but in the process the city will lose a beautiful space.
The American Folk Art Museum's brilliant double helix of intertwined stairs is part of an unusual solution to that fundamental urban architectural problem: how to get people from the street into the upper reaches of a building. To accomplish this via a veritable fountain of light and volume in such a constricted and narrow site is nothing less than a tour de force.
New York has already lost the magical space of the original Penn Station. Let's not repeat such a terrible mistake.
The Museum of Modern Art has an extensive collection of architectural models. Here, literally next door, is architecture full scale — the real thing! At the very least, this could be the grandest walk-through sculpture in the museum's collection.
JONATHAN FRIEDMAN
Glen Cove, N.Y., April 12, 2013
The writer is an architect and a professor and former dean of the School of Architecture at the New York Institute of Technology.
To the Editor:
Most buildings put up in New York City since World War II are dull. Two exceptions were museums: the Gallery of Modern Art at 2 Columbus Circle, designed by Edward Durrell Stone, and the American Folk Art Museum on West 53rd Street, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.
The former had a light quirky charm, the latter a striking dark presence. Both were unique and stood out. How odd that the death knell for both came from other museums that took them over. The Museum of Arts and Design eviscerated Stone's building, and the Museum of Modern Art has the same fate planned for that of Mr. Williams and Ms. Tsien. I thought museums were supposed to preserve things, not wreck them.
STEVEN MILLER
South Orange, N.J., April 13, 2013
The writer is an adjunct professor in the program for museum professions, Seton Hall University, and former senior curator of the Museum of the City of New York.
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