Hauser & Wirth announced today that its new building at 542 West 22nd Street, designed by Selldorf Architects, will open on October 6. This 36,000 square foot, 5-story gallery is Hauser & Wirth’s first purpose-built, ground-up building. Selldorf Architects has collaborated with Hauser & Wirth on its spaces internationally since the founding of the gallery in 1992. As with all of Selldorf’s previous designs for Hauser & Wirth’s galleries, the goal is to create strong, well-proportioned spaces that place art at the forefront of the visitor’s experience. Here, the ground floor and second floor spaces that front the street feature 16-foot and 12-foot tall glass doors that completely fold away, opening the façade up to further engage the public with the art on view.

The first project presented in the new building will be ‘Artists for New York’ (October 6 – 22, 2020), a benefit featuring works donated by scores of contemporary artists to raise funds in support of a group of 16 New York City non-profit visual arts organizations and charitable partners impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This presentation will be followed in November 2020 by solo exhibitions of works by George Condo and Jack Whitten.

As in many of Hauser & Wirth’s other locations, the new building on 22^nd Street will also feature permanent, site-specific artist interventions. Works by Mary Heilmann and Rashid Johnson will be the first among these, with others to follow. Earlier collaborations between Selldorf Architects and Hauser & Wirth have involved the adaptive reuse of existing buildings – the former Roxy roller rink and an Upper East Side townhouse in New York City, a former brewery complex in Zurich, a landmarked bank building in London, an abandoned historic flour mill in downtown Los Angeles.

Annabelle Selldorf, Principal of Selldorf Architects, summarized: “The new building for Hauser & Wirth developed from the close dialogue we have had with the gallery over the course of many years and many different projects. Here, we created something together that will envelope people with art. Visitors will encounter artworks all along their path through the building’s spaces. Installations will not be static, but will interact with the architecture dynamically, in alignment with Hauser & Wirth’s ethos and values.”

For more information, see Hauser & Wirth’s website here and our project page here.