alexander berggruen gallery
New York, USA, 2019
Tucked behind a Calder-designed sidewalk on Madison Avenue, the entry sequence to this gallery begins with a layered sense of history: first, the ornate Beaux-Arts facade by York & Sawyer, followed by a travertine-clad lobby that recalls the atmosphere of an old-world Tokyo office building. Stepping out of a traditional elevator into the gallery itself, the contrast is striking—a shift from historic weight to minimalist clarity, as if crossing eras in a single moment.
The client’s vision was for a space that felt light, warm, and pared back—elegant in its restraint, and always in service of the art. Inheriting an existing layout posed its challenges: the gallery had been conceived as a series of sequential rooms, a kind of procession that, over time, had begun to feel more like a maze. After many conversations, the decision was made to radically open up the space—removing nearly 90% of the interior walls.
The new gallery balances openness with intimacy. A restrained palette of white walls and warm wood floors creates a duality of domesticity and display, allowing the architecture to quietly support a wide range of artwork while imbuing the space with a welcoming, human scale.
Photography Dario Lasagni