MoMA: New York's Museum of Modern Art has built a better mousetrap

NEW YORK — New York's Museum of Modern Art has reinvented itself as a destination.

Last month, after a two-year, $425 million expansion and remodeling, MoMA reopened as a modernist dream world. The museum's vast collection is now displayed in an instant landmark, a building that preserves and expands the sculpture garden, which has always been an oasis but has a fresh take on everything else.

It is a triumph for Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi, who, in an effort to keep it from competing with the art inside, has produced a six-story museum in the midst of congested midtown Manhattan that seems to float on air.

Wrapping around and soaring above two earlier buildings just off Fifth Avenue, the new museum is made up of galleries neatly arranged in an open plan around a soaring 110-foot-tall atrium. The enormous structure nearly doubles the museum's capacity in a seamless effort that's defined by the huge windows that transform views of the city into works of art in themselves.

In a curious way, it's as if the art is the only reality, featuring such easily recognizable classics as van Gogh's "The Starry Night," Andy Warhol's "Gold Marilyn Monroe," a 19th century bentwood chair and an Oxo Good Grips jar opener.

The museum may not be on the cutting edge of contemporary trends — there are hundreds of New York galleries doing that — but it can boast of having the greatest modern art collection in the world.

Name any major modern artist from the past century and you're likely to find him or her here: Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Dorothea Lange, Jackson Pollock, Diane Arbus, Richard Serra, Pinin Farina. Who's he? Farina designed the luscious red 1946 Cisitalia sports car.

Taniguchi's virtually new museum not only doubles the exhibit space but vastly expands the design and bookstore and adds two cafes. All this within a shell that sometimes feels transparent — it's a magical experience to walk along a glass-enclosed passageway from one section to another.

It's the ticket price that brings visitors down to earth: General admission is now $20. There are discounts for seniors and students, and admission is free for everyone Friday evenings, courtesy of design-conscious Target.