New home for the Sperone Westwater art gallery presents vertical space challenges:

“…architects often say the possibilities of a building lie in its limitations, and architect Norman Foster was drawn to the challenge of designing what is essentially a vertical art gallery on New York City’s former skid row, a landscape dominated by restaurant supply stores. The building, at 257 Bowery, just south of Houston Street and one block away from the New Museum of Contemporary Art, will be the new Lower East Side home for Sperone Westwater. The gallery, now on West 13th Street in the West Village, represents artists like Bruce Nauman, Richard Long, Guillermo Kuitca and William Wegman. At its new address it will rise eight stories on a site of just 25 by 100 feet.”

Mr. Foster said, “it’s a case of the constraints finally becoming the inspiration.”

– Architect’s Challenge: A Sliver of a Space by Robin Pogrebin, October 20, 2009, The New York Times (registration required)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/arts/design/21foster.html?_r=3&th&emc=th