Telegraph: An exhilarating temple of enlightenment
Yoshio Taniguchi's new Museum of Modern Art in New York at last provides that legendary institution with a building commensurate with the importance of its encyclopaedic collections – not only its stupendous holdings in 19th- and 20th-century painting, sculpture and design, but also the less visible media of architecture, drawing, film, media, photography, prints, and illustrated books.
...In a story told by John Updike in a recent issue of The New Yorker, the architect is said to have told the museum trustees: "Raise a lot of money for me, I'll give you good architecture. Raise even more money, I'll make the architecture disappear."
And that, pretty much, is what he has done. Everything about the building radiates expensive reticence, conservative good taste. Externally, its sheer façade of subdued black granite, aluminum panels, and white and grey glass gives little hint of the wonders inside. But, when you step over the threshold, something extraordinary happens. Taniguchi's serenely minimalist architecture draws you gently but inexorably forward with the promise of what I am tempted to call enlightenment.
