OMA / Shohei Shigematsu pulls the former walls of Sotheby's, and designs its new headquarters in New York

After one year of construction, Sotheby’s has unveiled its new spaces designed by OMA. The vast new galleries will distinguish Sotheby’s as the world’s premier commercial space for viewing and acquiring fine art, precious objects, luxury goods and more.

Sotheby's Ground Floor Gallery, reception. Double-height – ceiling over 20 feet tall. Sotheby’s NY by OMA, photograph by Brett Beyer Photography.

OMA has completed its first major art space in New York, the new galleries increase Sotheby’s exhibition space from 67,000 to more than 8.400 square meter (90,000+ square feet, 2 acres) across four floors. Designed by Shohei Shigematsu of OMA, the new exhibition galleries will have square footage that outnumbers even the Whitney and the Guggenheim, making it the premier space for viewing and acquiring fine art. The May exhibitions will display exhibitions and auctions of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art.

Shohei Shigematsu, explains the transformation as a process of "flexibility through diversity. We give more freedom to the building, so that it stops being a great elephant". The large columns that were hidden behind the walls are now visible to be part of the history that is shown and get a more efficient use of space.

The expansion of the galleries coincides with the celebration of the 75th anniversary of Sotheby's. Comprising 40 galleries of varying sizes spread across four entirely transformed floors, the new space rivals major museums around the world in scope, scale, quality and flexibility.

Description of project by OMA

Designed by Shohei Shigematsu of OMA, the redesign features vast new exhibition galleries that address the complex needs of Sotheby’s as the world’s premier commercial space for viewing and acquiring a diverse collection of fine art, precious objects, luxury goods and more. Comprising 40 galleries of varying sizes spread across four entirely transformed floors, the new space will rival major museums around the world in scope, scale, quality and flexibility.

Shohei Shigematsu: “We wanted to embody Sotheby’s ambition to reinvigorate and enhance the client experience by introducing high-flexibility through reorganization of programs and diversification of gallery spaces. The new headquarters is designed for openness and discovery—all public facing programs are shifted to lower levels, unlocking the public potential of the building. A taxonomy of galleries can be used separately or as clusters to allow curatorial freedom, driven by business model shifts and expanding repertoire of programming.”

Our conceptual proposal clarifies the overall flow through the building by surgically restacking and consolidating complementary programs while freeing up space for improved connectivity and openness—new retail, gallery and client spaces span the first four floors to better engage clients and visitors. Flexibility in architecture is often defined through adaptable or moveable elements within blank spaces, so that anything can happen anywhere. What results are more often than not characterless environments that fail to work perfectly for any specific program or use. Rather than flexibility through genericity, OMA’s key ambition for Sotheby’s new galleries was to establish flexibility through diversity.

Across the bottom four levels of Sotheby’s headquarters, 40 new galleries of 20 distinct types ranging in size, scale, material, and form respond to the different types of sales, exhibitions, and events. The level of the first floor is raised, with a new double-height gallery to create a seamless connection between the street and exhibition. This gallery immediately connects to the second floor, through interior windows that look from the second floor down to the first floor space, providing visitors with a unique vantage point to view art. A dynamic repertoire of spatial conditions for display—from white cube, double height, enfilade, corridor, cascade, octagonal and L-shaped—can be used individually or as clusters, to accommodate various programming as well as the display of Sotheby’s diverse portfolio. Individual gallery clusters can be closed for art install while the majority of the floor remains open for exhibition, enabling a rapid and efficient turnover of exhibition spaces which is typically every 3-4 days.

The redevelopment also introduces a new aura for Sotheby’s as a part of the institution’s global program of concurrent enhancements in London and Paris. Entry into gallery clusters is defined at their thresholds with custom stained walnut panels and doors, a nod to the traditional woodwork found at Sotheby’s London. Simultaneously, the history of the building at York Avenue is not ignored. Existing concrete columns are exposed, stripped, and hand stippled to reveal their material character, and steel beams in open ceiling galleries are left exposed, acknowledging the building’s industrial past.

The inaugural marquee May exhibitions of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art will be on view and accessible to the public until May 14, 2019.

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Double-height – ceiling 25 feet tall. Sotheby’s NY by OMA, photograph by Brett Beyer Photography.

Sotheby’s NY by OMA, photograph by Brett Beyer Photography.

Sotheby's Ground Floor Gallery. Double-height – ceiling over 20 feet tall. Sotheby’s NY by OMA, photograph by Brett Beyer Photography.

Detail. Sotheby’s NY by OMA, photograph by Brett Beyer Photography.

Overview sketch. Sotheby’s New York Headquarters by Shohei Shigematsu / OMA. Image courtesy of OMA New York

Rendering. Sotheby’s New York Headquarters by Shohei Shigematsu / OMA. Image courtesy of OMA New York

Floor plans. Sotheby’s New York Headquarters by Shohei Shigematsu / OMA. Image courtesy of OMA New York

Sotheby’s New York Headquarters by Shohei Shigematsu / OMA. Image courtesy of OMA New York

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More information

Shohei Shigematsu

Shohei Shigematsu born in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan in 1973. In 1996 graduated from the Department of Architecture at Kyushu University. Studying at the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam. He became an associate since 2004.joined OMA in 1998 and became a partner in 2008.

He has led the office in New York since 2006. Sho's designs for cultural venues include the Quebec National Beaux Arts Museum and the Faena Arts Center in Miami Beach, as well as direct collaborations with artists, including Cai Guo Qiang, Marina Abramovic and Kanye West.

Sho is currently designing a number of luxury, high rise towers in San Francisco, New York, and Miami, as well as a mixed-use complex in Santa Monica. His engagement with urban conditions around the world include a new civic center in Bogota, Colombia; a post-Hurricane Sandy, urban water strategy for New Jersey; and a food hub in Louisville, Kentucky.

He is a design critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he is conducting a research studio entitled Alimentary Design, investigating the intersection of food, architecture and urbanism.

OMA. Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international practice operating within the traditional boundaries of architecture and urbanism. AMO, a research and design studio, applies architectural thinking to domains beyond. OMA is led by eight partners – Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and Managing Partner-Architect David Gianotten – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. OMA-designed buildings currently under construction are the renovation of Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) in Berlin, The Factory in Manchester, Hangzhou Prism, the CMG Times Center in Shenzhen and the Simone Veil Bridge in Bordeaux.

OMA’s completed projects include Taipei Performing Arts Centre (2022), Audrey Irmas Pavilion in Los Angeles (2020), Norra Tornen in Stockholm (2020), Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), MEETT Toulouse Exhibition and Convention Centre (2020), Galleria in Gwanggyo (2020), WA Museum Boola Bardip (2020), nhow RAI Hotel in Amsterdam (2020), a new building for Brighton College (2020), and Potato Head Studios in Bali (2020). Earlier buildings include Fondazione Prada in Milan (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow (2015), De Rotterdam (2013), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012), Casa da Música in Porto (2005), and the Seattle Central Library (2004).

AMO often works in parallel with OMA's clients to fertilize architecture with intelligence from this array of disciplines. This is the case with Prada: AMO's research into identity, in-store technology, and new possibilities of content-production in fashion helped generate OMA's architectural designs for new Prada epicenter stores in New York and Los Angeles. In 2004, AMO was commissioned by the European Union to study its visual communication, and designed a colored "barcode" flag, combining the flags of all member states, which was used during the Austrian presidency of the EU. AMO has worked with Universal Studios, Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, Heineken, Ikea, Condé Nast, Harvard University and the Hermitage. It has produced Countryside: The Future, a research exhibited at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York; exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, including Public Works (2012), Cronocaos (2010), and The Gulf (2006); and for Fondazione Prada, including When Attitudes Become Form (2012) and Serial and Portable Classics (2015). AMO, with Harvard University, was responsible for the research and curation of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and its publication Elements. Other notable projects are Roadmap 2050, a plan for a Europe-wide renewable energy grid; Project Japan, a 720-page book on the Metabolism architecture movement (Taschen, 2010); and the educational program of Strelka Institute in Moscow.

Office for Metropolitan Architecture OMA, New York

Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is a leading international partnership practicing architecture, urbanism, and cultural analysis. OMA's buildings and masterplans around the world insist on intelligent forms while inventing new possibilities for content and everyday use. OMA is led by ten partners – Rem Koolhaas, Ellen van Loon, Reinier de Graaf, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, David Gianotten, Chris van Duijn, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Jason Long and Michael Kokora – and maintains offices in Rotterdam, New York, Beijing, Hong Kong, Doha and Dubai.

Responsible for OMA’s operations in America, OMA New York was established in 2001 and has since overseen the successful completion of several buildings across the country including Milstein Hall at Cornell University (2011); the Wyly Theater in Dallas (2009); the Seattle Central Library (2004); the IIT Campus Center in Chicago (2003); and Prada’s Epicenter in New York (2001). The office is currently overseeing the construction of three cultural projects, including the Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec and the Faena Arts District in Miami Beach – both scheduled for completion in 2016 – as well as a studio expansion for artist Cai Guo Qiang in New York. The New York office has most recently been commissioned to design a number of residential towers in San Francisco, New York, and Miami, as well as two projects in Los Angeles; the Plaza at Santa Monica, a mixed use complex in Los Angeles, and the Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

OMA New York’s ongoing engagements with urban conditions around the world include a new civic center in Bogota, Colombia; a post-Hurricane Sandy, urban water strategy for New Jersey; the 11th Street Bridge Park and RFK Stadium-Armory Campus Masterplan in Washington, DC; and a food hub in West Louisville, Kentucky.