The new MoMA has finally opened at 11 West 53 Street in Manhattan. The project nearly doubles the space for MoMA's exhibitions and programs. Designed by Yoshio Taniguchi (with Kohn Pedersen Fox overseeing), the new MoMA features 630,000 square feet of new and redesigned space. With greater and more varied spaces, significantly more art can now be displayed, including large-scale contemporary work. The task of lighting MoMA went to George Sexton Associates of Washington DC...

Throughout its history, The Museum of Modern Art has used architecture as a vehicle for self-renewal and regeneration. The recently completed building project represents MoMA's most extensive redefinition since its founding seventy-five years ago. The Museum combines new spaces with MoMA's original architecture to dramatically enhance its dynamic collection of modern and contemporary art.

MoMA conducted an extensive worldwide search for an architect who would not simply add on to the Museum's existing architecture, but would be able to transform MoMA's various buildings and additions into a unified whole. Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi won the commission with a design that would, in his own words, "transform MoMA into a bold new museum while maintaining its historical, cultural, and social context".

The 630,000-square-foot Museum has nearly twice the capacity of the former facility. The new six-story David and Peggy Rockefeller Building houses the main collection and temporary exhibition galleries. Taniguchi worked closely with curators to refine his concept into a design that would expertly accommodate the type and scale of works displayed. Spacious galleries for contemporary art are located on the second floor, with more intimately scaled galleries for the collection on the levels above. Expansive, skylit galleries for temporary exhibitions are located on the top floor. MoMA's Film and Media program resumes in the two refurbished Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, located below the lobby level.

In the expanded Museum lobby, Taniguchi takes inspiration from the unique vitality of the streets of midtown Manhattan. This bustling interior promenade connects Fifty-third and Fifty-fourth Streets and offers spectacular views of both The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden and the light-filled Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium, which soars 110 feet above street level. The lobby also serves as the Museum's 'information centre', with multiple ticket counters; information about membership, exhibitions, and programs; and access to the Museum's theatres, restaurant, stores, and garden.

Masterworks of modern sculpture, seasonal plantings, and reflecting pools once again welcome visitors to the beloved Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, which Taniguchi identified as "perhaps the most distinctive single element of the Museum today". The architect preserved Philip Johnson's original 1953 design and re-established the garden's southern terrace to create an elegant outdoor patio for The Modern, the Museum's new fine-dining restaurant.

Interior work continues on MoMA's new, eight-story Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building. When complete, it will offer five times more space for educational and research activities, including an expanded Library and Archives, a reading room, a 125-seat auditorium, workshop space for teacher training programs, study centres, and a lobby with magnificent views of the Sculpture Garden.

With his design for The Museum of Modern Art, Taniguchi has demonstrated that architectural expression and the proper environment for looking at art can be brilliantly intertwined. The result, in the architect's own words, is "an ideal environment for art and people [created] through the imaginative and disciplined use of light, materials, and space".

The lighting design was conceived through intense consultation with George Sexton Associates and the Museum's professional staff. The intent of the lighting design is to merge lighting systems with reductive architecture to create pristine environments that merge with evocative displays of art, resulting in a heightened experience for all visitors. The choice was made to use General Electric lamps for most of the Museum lighting because of their controlled distribution and colour rendition characteristics.

Visitors to MoMA are injected into a towering Atrium volume that appears deceptively simple in concept. The space provides a sense of scale and orientation to the visitor.

A component of the lighting system is a flexible trough system located at the second story ceiling of the Atrium. The system houses interchangeable fixtures hidden from view by flush panels. Three similarly configured but functionally different fixture modules are capable of wall washing and spotlighting large and small objects. Large scale sculpture and paintings are lighted from the four story ceiling by track mounted fixtures lamped with General Electric 120 Watt Par 64 6 volt narrow spots.

The evolution of gallery design required the development of a new series of small lighting fixtures with superlative performance characteristics. The new fixture family responds to the demand to light architecture and art to exacting standards while appearing visually clean. General Electric MR-16 Constant Colour Precise lamps were used exclusively with this new custom designed family of miniature fixtures because the architecture and the historically important paintings demand the extremes of precision in their illumination.

The two fixture types in this new series perform wall wash and object lighting functions. Each fixture type is fully shrouded to eliminate spill light and to shield view to the lamp. They are integrated with an internal heat sink and a combination step-down transformer and track plug that recesses into the lighting track. The fixtures are capable of internal placement of spread lenses, ultraviolet filters and light reduction screens. Every effort was made to provide a small-scale fixture that handles the demands of museum lighting. The small-scale wall wash fixture is typically lamped with 35 watt MR-16 flood for its consistent output, superlative distribution and excellent colour rendition. A palette of lamps types are used in the small-scale object lights depending on the size and media of the object being illuminated. Lamp types include, but are not limited to, the 20 Watt MR-16 very narrow spot for the lighting of sculpture and design objects, and the 20 and 35 Watt MR-16 narrow spot for the lighting of paintings and architectural models. Approximately 6,300 MR-16 lamps are now in use at in the small-scale track fixtures at the Museum of Modern Art.

A series of vast galleries, some exceeding 20 feet in height, show the Museum's monumental paintings and sculptures. Carefully placed lighting track responds to all object and architectural lighting requirements. The family of fixtures, similar in configuration to the small custom fixture, adeptly provides refined wall wash and precise object lighting, technical achievements important to the Museum in the unadulterated presentation of objects in visually quiet spaces. Wall wash fixtures are lamped with 250 watt Par 38 120 volt 30 degree lamps. Object lights used in these galleries are lamped with General Electric Par 36 12 volt halogen lamps. The selection of lamps used includes the 35 watt Par 36 12 volt 5 degree and 8 degree spots, as well as the 50 watt Par 36 12 volt 8 degree spot and 30 degree flood for precision in the lighting of artwork.