The lustrous tiles that sheathe the exterior of the Museum of Arts and Design (MaD) in New York make it easy to envisage the little tower, with its zigzag fenestration, as a pearl on the collar of Columbus Circle. This seems a fitting image for an institution that has devoted an entire floor of its new home, in the overhauled Edward Durrell Stone “Lollipop” building, which opened last month, to a state-of-the-art jewelry resource center. The Tiffany & Co. Foundation Jewelry Gallery, named in recognition of the foundation’s $2 million grant, is headed by Ursula Ilse-Neuman, a 16-year veteran of MaD who, in late 2007, was appointed curator for contemporary jewelry. “No one is better suited to leading the Tiffany gallery’s programming than Ursula,” says Holly Hotchner, MaD’s director. “She’s been instrumental in shaping our collection.”

In MaD’s former, West 53rd Street, home, space constraints limited the display of its modern and contemporary gems, some 500 superb pieces encompassing everything from Arthur Smith’s mid-20th-century forged brass Neckpiece to Danielle Kerner’s high-tech 1999 Mag-Brooch, fabricated from prototyped epoxy and gold with a magnetic fastening. In the museum’s Columbus Circle digs, however, the New York firm Kiss + Zwigard Architects has conceived an ingenious installation scheme that will enable the gallery to host temporary shows while keeping its entire permanent collection publicly accessible. Central to the plan is a study-and-storage center composed of a large vitrine with stacks of drawers that runs along one of the gallery walls. There, on adjacent computer monitors, visitors select a piece they would like to see, and the appropriate glass-covered drawer opens, revealing the jewel inside.

The inaugural show, “Elegant Armor,” on view through May 31, 2009, includes such important works from the collection as a kinetic brooch from 1947–50 by the American studio jeweler Margaret de Patta and a gold ring in the shape of fingers and a thumb by the Italian sculptor Bruno Martinazzi, from 1992. "Mad for Jewels" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's October 2008 Table of Contents.