Architect Liz Diller's Firm Raises Urban Renewal to High Art

On a cold evening in late January, Elizabeth Diller, the 59-year-old founding partner of the New York-based architecture practice Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), took the podium at Manhattan’s Society for Ethical Culture before an audience of 800, many of them spoiling for a fight. “The most praise that I’ve received in the last three weeks is for my bravery in coming here tonight,” she began. Diller then spoke with her usual precision on the evening’s topic—the Museum of Modern Art’s controversial decision to tear down a neighboring building, the former home of the American Folk Art Museum.

The demolition is part of MoMA’s expansion, which Diller’s firm is designing. It’s a choice that has ended Diller’s and her partner and husband Ric Scofidio’s longtime friendship with the architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, also a couple, who designed the Folk Art Museum 14 years ago. (Williams and Tsien released a statement on Jan. 8 calling the decision “a loss to the city of New York” and “a missed opportunity to find new life and purpose for a building that is meaningful to so many.”) Diller has said that when her firm took on the project, they thought they would persuade MoMA to save the building, but after six months of study they concluded it had to go. “I’m typically one for adaptive reuse,” she says. “Sometimes it doesn’t work out.”