NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art presents today The Young Architects Program 2009, on view through September 14, 2009. This is an exhibition of the five finalists' proposed projects. The exhibition was organized by Andres Lepik, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.

Barry Bergdoll, the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA, explains, "The project proposes to deal with issues of sustainability and a return to basics, working towards climate altering through passive means, even in the context of an exhibition/party space in the P.S.1 courtyard. It consists of a lightweight aluminum frame of recyclable parts clad in a weave, allowing some light and air to circulate but at the same time shading visitors from the sunlight. Its combination of forms includes tall, chimney-like shapes, heroic cones, and others that are evocative at once of the vernacular village structures world-wide and of the open ruined vaults of the Roman Forum."

Antoine Guerrero, P.S.1 Director of Operations and Exhibitions, adds, "From the ground up, another exciting, ephemeral transformation of our outdoor galleries will leave a lasting impression on over 50,000 summer visitors who will have the chance to cool off."

MOS architects Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith say, "Today, we are rethinking and resituating architecture—not only its conceptual and formal economies but also its inherent ability to engage and produce visceral intimate environments. This project, afterparty, is a temporary urban shelter and passive cooling station for P.S.1 and its Warm Up events, creating an escape from the summer heat and constructing a network of large, medium, and small cellular spaces that allow for intimacy and social formations to thrive."

For the Young Architects Program 2009 selection process, MoMA and P.S.1 invited outside experts in the field of architecture, including architects, curators, academics, and magazine editors, to nominate the finalists from a pool of approximately 40 candidates that included both recent graduates and established architects experimenting with new styles or techniques. After reviewing the candidates, five finalists were selected to present proposals to a panel composed of Glenn D. Lowry, Director; Kathy Halbreich, Associate Director; Peter Reed, Senior Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs; Barry Bergdoll, Philip Johnson Chief Curator, Department of Architecture and Design; Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, Department of Media; and Andres Lepik, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art; and Antoine Guerrero, Director of Operations and Exhibitions, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.

This year marks the twelfth summer that P.S.1 has hosted a combined architectural installation and music series in its outdoor galleries, though it is only the tenth year of the Young Architects Program, which began in 2000. The inaugural project was an architecturally based installation in 1998 by an Austrian artist collective, Gelatin. In 1999, Philip Johnson's DJ Pavilion celebrated the historic affiliation of P.S.1 and MoMA. The previous winners of the Young Architects Program are SHoP/Sharples Holden Pasquarelli (2000), ROY (2001), William E. Massie (2002), Tom Wiscombe / EMERGENT (2003), nARCHITECTS (2004), Xefirotarch (2005), OBRA (2006), Ball-Nogues (2007), and WORKac (2008).