SO-IL Architects in May completed a brick entrance for Chelsea’s Tina Kim Gallery. The addition combines the gallery’s role as a purveyor of contemporary art with the neighborhood’s industrial history.
Dezeen reports that the building formerly housed the Casey Kaplan Gallery, which moved out last year. The architecture firm was hired to redesign the ground floor and to create a new entrance.
In doing so, the architecture firm joins a roll call of other builders who have tweaked the building. From SO-IL:
“The gallery’s new space, which historically functioned as a filling station for pleasure vehicles, is located on West 21st Street in Chelsea. This New York City neighborhood is characterized by numerous spaces for art however, the area’s industrial past is still prevalent within the urban fabric.
“Over time, the brick facade of the century-old building has undergone numerous changes. Traces of this ever-evolving life are legible in the various brick patterns on the building’s skin. The current space is yet another layer of this ongoing history; recontextualizing pre-existing galleries and transforming the entrance to provide an unexpected experience of the familiar. The entry’s gradient of corbelling gently pulls the street inward, turning the rigid wall into an expressive moment of threshold.”
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The Tina Kim Gallery entrance by SO-IL. Photographs by Jeremy Haik.
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