Interview by Masoud Golsorkhi 
Portrait by Sohrab Golsorkhi-Ainslie

MG Fashion is a form of cultural adjacency. How do you relate to it, as a cultural form? 

SS There are a couple of major differences between architecture and fashion. Fashion deals with an almost intangible part of design, whereas architecture is always functional. Fashion also moves faster and can be more playful than architecture. With fashion exhibitions, the discipline I’m currently engaged in, it is often about producing something dreamy or unexpected, creating conditions that you would never be confronted with as an architect. Growing up in Japan, history feels like history, whereas the present and future feel detached: what’s remarkable about brands is how they use history as a basis for doing something new. 

MG Tell me about the extension OMA is building on New York’s New Museum, originally designed by SANAA [architectural firm led by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa]. 

SS The museum is a typology that is destined to extend forever, because collections are always growing faster than buildings are. I became personally involved in museum expansion in the early 2000s when I was a project architect for the Whitney Museum’s Breuer Building extension, but our plan ended up being too radical for the Upper East Side. Typically, when you extend a museum, you are given an existing building in a certain condition whose architectural language is from a different era. What’s unique about the New Museum extension is that the original building was completed only 19 years ago, so it is still contemporary architecture. I think it’s one of the first times that contemporary architecture has been added onto contemporary architecture. Before we started designing, we collected different images that could liberate our ideas of what constitutes a “typical” pair. We designed with the existing building in mind to ensure SANAA’s architecture shone through. 

MG There is coherence that points to a similar set of ideas, even though OMA and SANAA have different practices. 

SS We didn’t want to be too concerned with replicating the existing building’s language: we wanted something that was both ambiguously connected and disconnected. We have made a triangular plaza by cutting and shaving part of the building at the terminus of Prince Street, one of the main streets in Soho, and the atrium is constructed to evoke the exterior fire escape stairs in New York. From the research we have been doing about museum typologies, it has become apparent that in North America, galleries have become like community centres. People don’t just go there for exhibitions, but also to meet people. Trying to have some kind of open-ended space that acts as a buffer between the city and the actual gallery space is crucial. 

MG To many people, the contemporary art world has been reduced to fairs and biennials, which are basically just auctions. Building museums is a way of countering the trend of evaluating art through its price. 

SS I entered the office exactly around the time of the Bilbao effect [the phenomenon where a single building, for instance the Guggenheim Bilbao, is perceived to revitalise interest in a city]. All the municipalities in the world wanted to have a Guggenheim, and architects were delivering expressive designs all over the world. I think the art fair cleverly emphasised the multidisciplinary aspects of art, where fashion, design, food and architecture can be brought together. Institutions had failed to provide that kind of platform for exchange, and that’s why museums are now looking to build educational event spaces. Another extension I did was for the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, which is a museum near Delaware Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who designed Central Park in New York City. In the 1960s, there was an extension that had moved the parking lot to the front, creating this harsh contrast between the park and the city. Our extension un-did that: we created underground parking and made a stacked gallery wrapped with a glass enclosure, meaning that people could walk around the gallery and still have a view of the beautiful park. The existing courtyard was covered, so we collaborated with Olafur Eliasson to design the roof, which is both functional and an art piece. A lot of community events happen simultaneously with the exhibitions held there, and it has been a huge hit. People use spaces irrespective of their intended function. People are doing yoga in places they’re not supposed to. The public are more imaginative than architects. 

MG The public always invigorates architectural evolution, and sometimes architects really resent the public for spoiling the intended programming. 

SS I’m not saying that everything should be open and public, but having more open-ended spaces has become more important to me. I think the city used to be freer before Covid-19. Throughout and after the pandemic, we have witnessed more regulation and control. 

MG The introduction of surveillance and other forms of social hygiene is killing the city’s vitality, but it’s a special moment for New York right now with the election of Zohran Mamdani. Do you have any reflections on this emerging energy? 

SS People are fed up with the cost-of-living crisis, and I think people are realising that nothing is changing. It’s a very difficult moment, as New York is so divided. When you’re on the Democratic side, you only hear one type of opinion, and when you’re on the Republican side, it is the same. There’s not as much listening to, and understanding of, different opinions.

MG Has that become your mission, to create opportunities for cultural exchange?

SS Creating open-ended spaces is key to providing a place for people to meet and exchange. I believe creating spaces for interaction could make the situation better, or at least counteract the dominant trend of gentrification, which has been pushing a lot of people out of the city. The younger generations have a better attitude towards work-life balance. They are not insistent on living in a big city and will happily live on the outskirts or elsewhere, which could change the way cities are designed. This could mean building new cities that go beyond our current imagination. It will take a long time, but I have hope that younger people will have better initiatives for future city planning. .