By Terence Riley
Yoshio Taniguchi was selected from among an elite field of international architects to design The Museum of Modern Art's new building—his first commission outside his native Japan. This volume, which accompanies an exhibition of the same name at MoMA in 2005, highlights the project and eight others.
Designed by Massimo Vignelli, the book features an essay by Terence Riley, former Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, that examines the many overlapping contexts that inform Taniguchi's approach to architecture and the art of building, with an emphasis on The Museum of Modern Art's new building. The nine museums reviewed in this volume include the Shiseido Art Museum, Kakegawa, Shizuoka Prefecture (1978); the Ken Domon Museum of Photography, Sakata (1983); the Nagano Prefectural Shinano Art Museum, Higashiyama Kaii Gallery, Nagano (1990); the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Marugame (1991); the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota (1995); the Tokyo National Museum, The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures, Tokyo (1999); the Higashiyama Kaii Museum, Saikade (2004); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2004); and the Kyoto National Museum, Centennial Hall, Kyoto, (2007). 204 pp.; 205 illus.