BLUM is pleased to announce that Architecture Research Office (ARO) will lead the renovation and restoration of the gallery’s new Tribeca location at 9 White Street, which will open in fall 2024.
The venerated firm, ARO, is known for award-winning cultural and arts projects, such as the upgrade and expansion of Dia Art Foundation's flagship New York City location; the restoration of the Donald Judd home and studio at 101 Spring Street; and the restoration and expansion of the Rothko Chapel and its campus in Houston, TX.
BLUM New York at 9 White Street will be ARO’s first commercial gallery project, a design intervention that honors the vernacular of the historic 1912 façade and interiors. The architects will reinstate the cast-iron columns, exposed brick walls, and skylights original to the two-story, 6200-square-foot interior, which will feature exhibitions on the ground floor and viewing rooms and offices on the cellar level.
“It’s a pleasure and a privilege to be renovating such a beautiful space as 9 White Street,” Tim Blum states. “When we found it, it was very clear to us that the spirit of the space is distinctly not a white cube—it has a lot more texture, resonance, and undefined tonality. In New York City alone, the Judd Foundation and Dia Chelsea are two of our all-time favorite spaces by any metric—to work with ARO on their first commercial gallery space is a dream.”
ARO Principal Adam Yarinsky explains, “We are excited to create new architecture for BLUM that engages many of the original elements of the space to deepen the experience of viewing the gallery’s art.”
BLUM will open this new, New York City outpost in conjunction with the gallery’s thirtieth anniversary. For the occasion, a milestone exhibition will be installed across its three locations—Los Angeles, Tokyo, and New York. Entitled Thirty Years: Written with a Splash of Blood, and co-curated by Tim Blum and postwar Japanese art historian Mika Yoshitake, this presentation is an inter-generational survey of Japanese art from the 1960s to today.