Paul Kasmin reveals fourth gallery space designed by studioMDA

Standing just outside the shadows of Zaha Hadid’s futuristic condo building, 520 West 28th Street, and the High Line is the latest addition to New York’s Chelsea district – a newly built fourth gallery space for the art dealer Paul Kasmin. Designed by Markus Dochantschi of studioMDA, a longtime collaborator of Kasmin’s, the new gallery features a column-free exhibition space punctuated by 28 skylights. It's topped by a rooftop sculpture garden armed with a rotating exhibition programme that is also visible to the High Line’s six million visitors around the year.
As one of the neighbourhood’s few purpose-built gallery spaces, the newest Kasmin Gallery cuts a memorable figure. Cast out of concrete, the building makes a strong first impression with a white concrete façade that has been given the texture of brushed oak, and frames the expansive glass storefront. Inside, the 280 sq m space is capped off by a ceiling composed of 28 trapezoidal coffers, each individually installed with a skylight to ensure a flood of natural daylight into the gallery.
Not only does this waffle structure bring an innate rhythm to the space, it also provides flexibility for the exhibition area to be divided and partitioned as each show sees fit. Almost 7m-high walls also ensure that the gallery’s large-scale works are given the room that they need, which the opening exhibition of Walton Ford paintings make full use of.
The opening show focuses on new painting work by Walton Ford. Photography: Diego Flores
The gallery’s rooftop fulfills a similar goal – to provide the best backdrop for Kasmin’s growing sculpture collection. The garden brings an additional 465 sq m of outdoor exhibition space to the table, with the embedded skylights providing illumination in the evening.
Located what seems to be just an arms’ length from the High Line, the gallery’s sculpture garden is an unexpected feature that continues the natural visual plane when viewed from the public space. It boasts a gently undulating topography, designed by Future Green, and has been filled with trees and foliage that will change with the seasons. Individual platforms have also been installed to optimise the sculptures’ stability and visibility. Three bronze sculptures by Joel Shapiro inaugurate the new garden.
‘The new gallery is the result of many years of discussion,’ says Kasmin. ‘Nearly all galleries in Chelsea are adapted industrial spaces so the real ambition has been to create a purpose-built exhibition space with the sole intention of showing art at its very best and taking shows outside [into the garden] off the gallery walls.’
The new gallery features a column-free exhibition space punctuated by 28 skylights. Photography: Roland Halbe
A series of pieces by Joel Shapiro are installed on the gallery's rooftop sculpture garden. Photography: Christopher Stach, courtesy of Kasmin Gallery, © 2018 Joel Shapiro / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
INFORMATION
For more information visit the website of StudioMda
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Pei-Ru Keh is a former US Editor at Wallpaper*. Born and raised in Singapore, she has been a New Yorker since 2013. Pei-Ru held various titles at Wallpaper* between 2007 and 2023. She reports on design, tech, art, architecture, fashion, beauty and lifestyle happenings in the United States, both in print and digitally. Pei-Ru took a key role in championing diversity and representation within Wallpaper's content pillars, actively seeking out stories that reflect a wide range of perspectives. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children, and is currently learning how to drive.
-
ICON 4x4 goes EV, giving their classic Bronco-based restomod an electric twist
The EV Bronco is ICON 4x4’s first foray into electrifying its range of bespoke vintage off-roaders and SUVs
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
‘Dressed to Impress’ captures the vivid world of everyday fashion in the 1950s and 1960s
A new photography book from The Anonymous Project showcases its subjects when they’re dressed for best, posing for events and celebrations unknown
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Inside Camperlab’s Harry Nuriev-designed Paris store, a dramatic exercise in contrast
The Crosby Studios founder tells Wallpaper* the story behind his new store design for Mallorcan shoe brand Camperlab, which centres on an interplay between ‘crushed concrete’ and gleaming industrial design
By Jack Moss Published
-
Desert X 2025 review: a new American dream grows in the Coachella Valley
Will Jennings reports from the epic California art festival. Here are the highlights
By Will Jennings Last updated
-
This rainbow-coloured flower show was inspired by Luis Barragán's architecture
Modernism shows off its flowery side at the New York Botanical Garden's annual orchid show.
By Tianna Williams Published
-
‘Psychedelic art palace’ Meow Wolf is coming to New York
The ultimate immersive exhibition, which combines art and theatre in its surreal shows, is opening a seventh outpost in The Seaport neighbourhood
By Anna Solomon Published
-
Wim Wenders’ photographs of moody Americana capture the themes in the director’s iconic films
'Driving without a destination is my greatest passion,' says Wenders. whose new exhibition has opened in New York’s Howard Greenberg Gallery
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
20 years on, ‘The Gates’ makes a digital return to Central Park
The 2005 installation ‘The Gates’ by Christo and Jeanne-Claude marks its 20th anniversary with a digital comeback, relived through the lens of your phone
By Tianna Williams Published
-
In ‘The Last Showgirl’, nostalgia is a drug like any other
Gia Coppola takes us to Las Vegas after the party has ended in new film starring Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl
By Billie Walker Published
-
‘American Photography’: centuries-spanning show reveals timely truths
At the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Europe’s first major survey of American photography reveals the contradictions and complexities that have long defined this world superpower
By Daisy Woodward Published
-
Miami’s new Museum of Sex is a beacon of open discourse
The Miami outpost of the cult New York destination opened last year, and continues its legacy of presenting and celebrating human sexuality
By Anna Solomon Published