Situated one block from the Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, the Noguchi Museum is a veritable temple to the work of Isamu Noguchi, the late Modernist sculptor, landscape architect, and furniture designer. (It was also the first museum in the United States to be established by a living artist, when it opened in 1985.) Here, visitors who may know of Noguchi only for his recognizable glass-top table have 27,000 square feet of gallery space to explore the breadth of his oeuvre (which, as it happens, includes the brick building itself). Noguchi, who passed away in 1988, designed the space as a haven of calm amidst the grittiness of 1980s Queens, even adding a transporting outdoor sculpture garden. Today, the museum continually adds Noguchi works to its collection, and offers special exhibitions as well as educational programs. What’s more, visitors can purchase some of Noguchi’s lighting and furniture designs in a ground-floor gift shop.
The Noguchi Museum
Images by Nicholas Knight / ©The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York.