Is Minimalism Moribund?

Sarah Williams Goldhagan, in her review for The New Republic of Sejima and Nishizawa's new New Museum, evidently thinks so. While she finds the project's exterior 'pleasing,' Goldhagan basically determines it to be an unnecessary retread. More significantly, she seems to suggest that the architectural progeny of Judd are spent:

'SANAA's New Museum is a freeze-dried packet of desiccated minimalism. It is in no way miraculous. We are in more trouble than I thought if this is the project that is supposed to restore faith in New York City or point the way toward the future of architecture. The most that can be said in its favor is that in the New Museum, as in the firm's other projects, SANAA raises provocative questions about the value of minimalism in architecture.'

Perhaps programs of radical simplicity, with surprise no longer at hand and maybe impossible altogether, must at this juncture carry rather minimal expectations. Besides, simply because statements literally built have foregone subtlety—the play on transparency and light is quite appropriately apparent, even if one does not read the architects' written statement—that fact does not render them less sophisticated, or, more significantly, less important. Isn't the museum's ebullient appearance on the Bowery's east side enough?