In September, powerhouse gallery Hauser & Wirth will take over the distinctive building at 548 West 22nd Street building in West Chelsea that notably served as the former space of the Dia Art Foundation for years, but has been in limbo since 2004.
The building will serve as the gallery’s temporary home while construction of its new building next door occurs, according to the New York Times.
In the short time that Hauser & Wirth has been in its cavernous West 18th Street location—having taken over and completely overhauled the former Roxy nightclub in 2013—it has organized an impressive roster of massive exhibitions by Mark Bradford, Dieter Roth, Paul McCarthy, and Roni Horn, to name just a few.
Of the new Dia digs, partner and vice president Marc Payot tells the New York Times: “We are thrilled to be in this strongly historic space which was kind of the birthplace of contemporary art in Chelsea.”
Hauser and Wirth has hired starchitect Annabelle Selldorf to adapt the space. The new permanent building, which Selldorf is also designing, is expected to open in 2018. (She also designed David Zwirner’s West 19th Street space.)
The gallery also operates an uptown location in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and recently opened—to much fanfare—another massive space in downtown Los Angeles, in connection with partner and former Museum of Contemporary Art curator Paul Schimmel.
As artnet News reported in November 2014, the former Dia building was sold to a new landlord, Property Markets Group, which subsequently didn’t renew the leases of two tenants. Center 548, an event venue, confirmed to artnet News that it was leaving the building by the end of June 2015, and art dealer Zach Feuer also confirmed that the new landlord had cut short his existing lease. Feuer/Mesler is now located at 319 Grand Street.
At the time, a spokesperson for the Property Markets Group told artnet News that the building site “would be developed in some form” but did not provide further details. Property Markets Group did not immediately respond to artnet News’ request for comment.