One hundred twenty fifth Street with its music, the new building's stacked concrete terraces and the inverted stoop, the tall gallery inside, the works on the walls of Harlem's museum.
The Studio Museum in Harlem was founded in 1968 to show artists of African descent, and its artist in residence program has run since its early years. The museum's first purpose built home on West 125th Street, designed by Adjaye Associates with Cooper Robertson, opened in 2025. Its terraces step down toward the street.
Source · The Studio Museum in Harlem ↗
The new building's facade of layered concrete frames stepping back, the inverted stoop that opens the ground floor to the street as bleacher seating, the double height gallery, the roof terrace, the avenue with its vendors and the Apollo down the block. Mood: opening on 125th street. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.