GRT Architects Overhauls Storefront for Art and Architecture

GRT Architects has modernised New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture, installing a custom modular shelving system and placing a doorknob on the gallery's famous facade for the first time in its history.

The renovation covers the gallery's single, triangular space on the Lower East Side. It includes updated electrical and HVAC systems, reworked track lighting, and a flexible display system that the gallery can adapt for its wide range of installations. It is the first significant change to the street-level gallery in twenty years, and the institution's first semi-permanent exhibition display system.

"Practically, we needed to bring the gallery up to today's standards for mounting exhibitions safely, without having to reinvent the space from scratch every time," Storefront deputy director Guillermo Ruiz told Dezeen.

Storefront for Art and Architecture was founded in 1982 by architect Kyong Park in a tiny downtown storefront. The institution later moved into a sliver of a building on the Lower East Side, fitted with a concrete facade designed by Steven Holl and Vito Acconci, whose giant concrete panels swing open and closed.

GRT Architects responded with a modular aluminium shelving system affixed to small anchors along the gallery's front wall. The system sits just far enough from the facade to avoid collision with the rotating panel. Workers can deconstruct it completely to leave the gallery empty, or slide and bolt various configurations into place depending on the needs of each exhibition.

The modular components can be arranged at different heights and positions. They include panels for video projection and a shelf concealed by a canvas curtain. The studio built the system primarily from customised parts supplied by aluminium framing company 80/20.

"It's flexible enough that it's always working well with whatever exhibition they have," GRT Architects founding partner Tal Schori told Dezeen. "Whether it's video projection or objects or things on the wall."

The studio also added a mobile desk for a gallery attendant and a slim stainless steel handle on one of the facade panels, which doubles as the gallery's main door. The industrial, riveted beams of the original space informed all three designs.

"It is a small thing, but it's really significant because for decades Storefront never had a door handle," said Schori. "I think this small gesture is a really nice way to welcome people."

The team also updated the gallery's small bathroom, covering it completely in bright tilework by Jorge Pardo, a Cuban American artist who sits on the organisation's board.

The structural work went further. The studio "gutted" the walls, ceiling and plywood floor to eliminate, in Schori's words, "all the weird perturbations, soffits, and bump outs" the space had collected over decades of use. It also illuminated the concrete letters spelling out the elongated "Storefront for Art & Architecture" sign on the facade.

"It's no longer this dark void on the block where everything else is lit up," said Schori.

GRT Architects operates between Brooklyn and Mexico City. Schori and architect Rustam-Marc Mehta founded the studio in 2014. Schori serves on Storefront's board and worked at the institution as a gallery manager in 2003, his first job out of college. The studio recently completed a maximalist restaurant in Beverly Hills.

The renovation hands Storefront a durable infrastructure for its program of subversive architecture and art installations, ending two decades in which every exhibition required the ground-floor space to be rebuilt from scratch. Photography is by Rafael Gamo.