Via Wikimapia
Iwan Wirth, president and co-founder of Hauser & Wirth, announced today that they will construct a significant new gallery building to serve as its permanent downtown location in Manhattan.
This new gallery will be located at 542 West 22nd Street in the West Chelsea arts district, replacing Hauser & Wirth’s current temporary downtown venue at 511 West 18th Street, which was inaugurated in January 2013 and will continue as a venue for gallery exhibitions and programs until the expiration of its lease in 2017.
Complementing Hauser & Wirth’s townhouse at 32 East 69th Street, the new multi-story building on West 22nd Street will stand on a footprint of 7,400 square feet. Under the continued direction of partner and vice president Marc Payot, it will host an ambitious program of public exhibitions, projects, and events that spotlight the work of some of the most respected and challenging artists of the day, including emerging and established talents, as well as landmark artists whose estates the gallery represents.
Hauser & Wirth 22nd Street will be designed by Annabelle Selldorf of Selldorf Architects, who has worked closely with the gallery since the 1990s on its spaces in Zurich, London, and New York City, and is consulting design architect for Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, the highly-anticipated arts center scheduled to open to the public in Los Angeles in January 2016. Whereas Hauser & Wirth’s other venues around the world occupy existing and often historic buildings that have been sensitively restored and adapted for contemporary use, the 22nd Street structure will be the gallery’s first new, freestanding, purpose-built location. It will grace the south side of the block between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, on a stretch distinguished by the ginko, linden, pear, and sycamore trees and weathered basalt stone columns of Joseph Beuys’ ‘7000 Eichen (7000 Oaks)’, installed between 1988 and 1996 by the Dia Art Foundation. Dia formerly occupied the large masonry structure at 548 West 22nd Street, next door to the Hauser & Wirth site. Dia’s project space will stand across the street at 541 West 22nd Street.
‘After eight years of searching for a permanent downtown home in New York City, we are delighted to announce West 22nd Street as our future address,’
said Iwan Wirth.
‘It has been our long-held dream to construct an original new building of our own – the first we have ever undertaken in our 20-year history. On 22nd Street we plan to craft the great variety of spaces ideal for presenting the full range or our artists’ works, and to expand our capabilities as a cultural and social destination in one of the world’s most dynamic and creative cities.’
The land at 542 West 22nd Street has hosted a number of industrial and commercial enterprises – and structures – since the turn of the 20th century. In the 1920s, an electric switchboard manufacturer occupied the site, which later boasted a brewery warehouse and, subsequently, a plastic manufacturing facility. The edifice that currently stands on the site, dating to 1946, will be demolished to make way for construction of Hauser & Wirth’s new building, which is estimated to open in 2018.
