West Side Story

Designed by Annabelle Selldorf, Hauser & Wirth’s new Chelsea gallery is big, clever and inclusive

- Jessica Klingelfuss

Manuela Wirth

Iwan Wirth

Marc Payot

Annabelle Selldorf

Few neighbourhoods in New York have undergone a transformation as striking or significant as Chelsea. Once an industrial district, its gas stations and warehouses gave way to the inevitable tide of gentrification in the 1990s, after decades of neglect. An influx of art dealers decamping from the bubble of SoHo cemented its designation as the city’s artistic epicenter – though traces of its history still reverberate in the column-free spaces and red-brick façades that make up its warren of high-end commercial galleries and luxury residential developments.

On a grey day during Armory Week, it’s the tony neighborhood’s newest addition that has us braving New York’s fickle weather. Taking shelter in Hauser & Wirth’s West 22nd Street bookshop from the sputtering drizzle, we don the necessary safety gear before the brisk walk next door. Inside, the air is coloured with dust and the lingering balm of freshly dried paint. Nearly every sightline out of Hauser & Wirth’s still-under-construction new home by Selldorf Architects leads to buildings cocooned in scaffold netting. Chelsea seems poised to emerge anew.