Dia — Paratus Group

Dia: Chelsea

Continuing Dia’s history of repurposing and revitalizing existing buildings, this renovation retained the Chelsea neighborhood character and vernacular of which Dia has been a part since the 1980s. Designed by Architecture Research Office, the project merged Dia’s three contiguous Chelsea buildings to support a more cohesive visitor experience. The new Dia Chelsea features 20,000-square-feet of integrated street-level galleries for exhibitions, a new flexible space for public and educational programs, and the return of Dia’s bookstore to the city. Dia also extended Joseph Beuys’s 7,000 Eichen (7,000 Oaks) along West 22nd Street, bringing the total number of paired basalt columns and trees to thirty-eight.

Paratus Group was retained by Dia during the Design Development phase to make a project course correction. We were tasked with evaluating the building brief, re-budgeting the project, hiring a construction manager, and managing the construction. In addition, we helped Dia manage their office renovation, the graphic design, bookstore design, exhibition design coordination, and compliance with complex city approvals.

Architect: Architecture Research Office

Location: Manhattan, NY

Gross Square Footage: 32,500

Completion Date: 2021

www.diaart.org

News

Dia Chelsea, Keeper of the Avant-Garde Flame

By Roberta Smith

The saga of the Dia Art Foundation, New York’s venerable nonprofit, begins a new chapter with its return to West Chelsea. Of course it never really left when it decamped for the Hudson Valley. But a welcome back feels appropriate, given the impeccable renovation of 20,000 square feet of public space across three buildings, and including a revived bookstore — all reconfigured and unified by Architecture Research Office (ARO).

Dia Chelsea’s Deft Expansion May Start a New Trend in the World of Museum Renovations: Subtlety

By Taylor Dafoe

For major museums and galleries, a renovation is a statement. The announcements usually look the same: X starchitect will lead Y’s redesign that cost Z millions of dollars. Z is always a big number.

But the Dia Art Foundation has opted to tweak the traditional formula—instead of going big, it has opted to go subtle. The Minimalism-focused organization opens its renovated 20,000-square-foot home in West Chelsea, New York, on Friday after a two-year renovation.

The Dia Art Foundation Expands Its Grounds in NYC

By Sam Cochran

Nowadays it might seem perfectly logical to show art in a former factory—but that wasn’t always so. In the 1970s, Dia Art Foundation pioneered the concept, acquiring industrial spaces throughout then-depressed Manhattan to create a constellation of exhibition sites. “These buildings have a history as spaces where artists worked,” says Dia director Jessica Morgan. “When you move art from the studio into these environments, it feels like a natural progression of a project.”