Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, the designers of the upcoming Hood Museum expansion and Wilson Hall renovation, are in a strange position regarding their building for the American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan. The refined and well-regarded Modernist building is only a dozen years old and yet is likely to be razed — by its neighbor and owner, the Museum of Modern Art (Times story and blog post, background from Christopher Gray, overview at New Yorker blog).

The firm has a short statement about the museum building on its website, along with photos taken shortly after completion. Here is a Street View of the building made when it was still in use:

The building was fairly desolate on Wednesday:

But then on Thursday MoMA announced that demolition was not assured, that the building’s fate would be left up to the expansion architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro (New York Times).

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[Update 05.12.2013: Three links to Flash content on TWBTA site removed, New Yorker link added.]