Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

Upcoming Events

Plywood: Material, Process, Form

“Plywood,” explained Popular Science in 1948, “is a layercake of lumber and glue.” In the history of design, plywood is also an important modern material that has given 20th-century designers of everyday objects, furniture, and even architecture greater flexibility in shaping modern forms at an indu... [ + ]strial scale. This installation features examples, drawn from MoMA's collection, of modern designs that take advantage of the formal and aesthetic possibilities offered by plywood, from around 1930 through the 1950s. Archival photographs illuminate the process of design and manufacture in plywood. Iconic furniture by Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, and Arne Jacobsen appear alongside organic platters by Tapio Wirkkala (1951), Sori Yanagi’s Butterfly Stool (1956), an architectural model for a prefabricated house by Marcel Breuer (1943), and experimental designs for plywood in the aeronautics industry.

Architecture and Design Collection at MoMA

The world's first curatorial department devoted to architecture and design was established in 1932 at The Museum of Modern Art. From its inception, the collection has been built on the recognition that architecture and design are allied and interdependent arts, so that synthesis has been a founding ... [ + ]premise of the collection. Including 28,000 works ranging from large-scale design objects to works on paper and architectural models, the Museum’s diverse Architecture and Design collection surveys major figures and movements from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Starting with the reform ideology established by the Arts and Crafts movement, the collection covers major movements of the twentieth century and contemporary issues. The architecture collection documents buildings through models, drawings, and photographs, and includes the Mies van der Rohe Archive. The design collection comprises thousands of objects, ranging from appliances, furniture, and tableware to tools, textiles, sports cars—even a helicopter. The graphic design collection includes noteworthy examples of typography, posters, and other combinations of text and image.

Drawings Collection at MoMA

One of the most comprehensive collections of twentieth-century drawings anywhere, MoMA's holdings bring together more than 10,000 works on paper. These include a historical range of drawings in pencil, ink, and charcoal, as well as watercolors, gouaches, collages, and works in mixed mediums.

Film Collection at MoMA

Please visit NYC.com's Movie section for MoMA film screening information.

Founded in 1935 as the Film Library, this department's collection now includes more than 22,000 films and four million film stills; the strongest international film collection in the United States, it incorporates all perio... [ + ]ds and genres. Among the holdings are original negatives of the Biograph and Edison companies, and the world's largest collection of D. W. Griffith films. The film collection is stored in the Museum's Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center, a state-of-the-art facility that opened in June 1996.