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This week, Dia Chelsea reopens to the public after a two-year—and reportedly $20 million—renovation. Designed by Architecture Research Office (ARO), the 32,500-square-foot site combines three contiguous buildings on West 22nd Street into a space that encompasses 20,000 square feet for exhibitions, a “talk space” for public and educational programming, and Dia’s bookstore.
Dia has long had a footprint in that area, opening its first Chelsea outpost in 1987; several years before commercial galleries did the same. At the time, it represented a decisive break from the white-box SoHo exhibition space, embracing instead the brick, steel, and general grit of a neighborhood primarily known for its warehouses and auto-repair shops. The new Dia Chelsea rekindles some of that old roughness, says curator Alexis Lowry. “I’m a biased judge, but I think the architects have done a really, really beautiful job of essentially taking the buildings back to their essentials—so stripping them down, but also just tweaking them in small places so that they feel clean and elegant, but like the industrial spaces that they have always been.” ARO’s work isn’t over, however: The Dia project will also include the creation of Dia SoHo at 77 Wooster Street, and the “revitalization” of two landmark installations, Walter De Maria’s