Studio Museum

The new Studio Museum in Harlem is the first purpose-built home for the celebrated 1968-founded museum of African-American art, on West 125th Street between Lenox and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevards. Designed by Adjaye Associates in collaboration with Cooper Robertson, the seven-story, 82,000-square-foot, $160-million building reinterprets the masonry patterns and window compositions of Harlem's brownstones and prewar apartment buildings; a series of glass doors and stepped entryways recall the social stoops that define the area's streetscape, with a generous double-height ground-floor window and a 'reverse stoop' descending into the museum to dissolve the boundary between sidewalk and lobby. Exhibition and Artist-in-Residence spaces have more than doubled, allowing larger-scale work; a rooftop terrace by Harlem-based Studio Zewde adds a landscaped gathering space with native plantings and panoramic Manhattan views.