From 2005:
Read the whole thing here.The exaggerated scale of the building swamps the art it contains, and the austere décor is so rigidly uniform in its self-conscious simplicity as to make the museum seem even bigger than it is. As if to compensate—which it doesn’t—most of the galleries are as overstuffed with paintings as they are overcrowded with people, making it impossible to concentrate on any one work with anything remotely approaching ease. And while I’m hardly the first person to remark on the mall-like character of the new MoMA, I found it even more oppressive this time around. I came away feeling that visitors were intended not to commune with the art on the walls but to pass by it briskly on the way from the food court to the museum store, sped on their hasty way by the endless banks of escalators that in retrospect strike me as the building’s most memorable feature….