West Chelsea art gallery exposes the old to create the new

Once a 19th-century factory building, the Sundaram Tagore Gallery in New York’s West Chelsea neighborhood displays art focusing on dualities between Western and non-Western cultures. The 4,000-sf building was completely overhauled by the Building Team of Lilker Associates (MEP engineer), William Vitacco Associates (expediting), Lighting Collaborative, and Katz Architecture. Heavy timber framing was exposed and the floor refinished in polished concrete to spark dialogue about the existing and the pre-existing, the industrial and the natural, the textured and the smooth, the old and the new.