MoMA Names YAP Finalists and New Curator

Now in its 17th year, the YAP can be seen as a barometer for cutting-edge architectural technology and form-making. Installed in the courtyard of MoMA PS1 each summer to coincide with the museum's popular Warm Up music series, the invited competition asks entrants to provide shade and seating, incorporate water and address contemporary architectural issues. Last year's winner was Andre Jaque / Office for Political Innovation's COSMO, a movable machine that cleaned water via a complex series of pipes hung from rings.

The five finalists for the 2016 YAP are:
 

First Office, Los Angeles
ESCOBEDO + SOLIS, Mexico City
ULTRAMODERNE, Providence, Rhode Island
COBALT OFFICE, Houston
Frida Escobedo, Mexico City

On 30 November MoMA announced that Sean Anderson, an architect and professor who most recently taught at the University of Sydney in Australia, is the new Associate Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design. He takes over the post that Pedro Gadanho held from late 2011 until earlier this year, when the Portugal native was appointed the Artistic Director of the new Museum of Art, Technology, and Architecture in Lisbon.

Anderson, who has degrees from Cornell, Princeton and UCLA and has practiced as an architect in Afghanistan, India, Morocco, Sri Lanka, and the United States, will "work with colleagues in the department to develop the collection, exhibitions, and related public programs, with a special emphasis on contemporary architecture (since 1990)," per a statement from MoMA. Further, his responsibilities "will include overseeing MoMA’s Issues in Contemporary Architecture exhibition series, assisting in curatorial supervision of the Young Architects Program (YAP) both at MoMA PS1 and with international partners, and serving as the primary liaison to architecture communities both locally in New York as well as globally."

Anderson will work under Martino Stierli, who was appointed the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design in July 2014. With a recent show on Le Corbusier curated by his predecessor Barry Bergdoll with Jean-Louis Cohen, and a current show on visionary single-family houses curated by Gadanho (on display until March 2016), the fruits of Stierli's efforts since his appointment are yet to be seen. That said, World-Architects is eager to discover where Stierli and Anderson will take the exhibitions and programs on architecture and design at MoMA.