The Bronx Museum
Free contemporary art museum on the Grand Concourse, with a folded glass and aluminium north wing.
The Bronx Museum was founded in 1971 and first showed work in the rotunda of the Bronx County Courthouse. In 1982 it moved into a former synagogue at 1040 Grand Concourse, remodelled by Castro-Blanco, Piscioneri and Feder. A north wing designed by Arquitectonica and opened in 2006 gave the institution a distinctive street presence: a pleated screen of glass and anodised aluminium that folds along the Concourse and reads differently as passers-by move along the pavement.
The permanent collection holds some two thousand works, concentrating on artists of African, Asian and Latin American descent and on art made about or in the Bronx. Admission has been free for all visitors since 2012. The Artist in the Marketplace programme, running since 1980, gives emerging artists professional training and culminates in a group exhibition, and the museum works closely with local schools. A further expansion designed to reunify the north and south wings is planned to complete in 2027.
Highlights
- Folded glass and aluminium north wing of 2006 by Arquitectonica
- Free admission for all visitors since 2012
- Collection focused on Bronx-linked and diasporic contemporary artists
- Artist in the Marketplace programme, running since 1980
