The design for the New Museum, which the Tokyo-based firm Sejima + Nishizawa/Sanaa first revealed in 2003 for New York City’s only all-contemporary art institution, layers six off-kilter white boxes above a formerly grungy block on the Lower East Side. That striking shape led many people to expect a show-offy building. But its architects hope that when the $50 million, 60,000-square-foot museum officially opens this weekend, visitors and passersby will instead be struck by its neighborly spirit. The shift of each box creates space for a terrace or skylight, providing views of surrounding buildings from each stairwell, while its ground floor engages the street with transparency.

Sanaa’s New Museum, photographed in September as constructed neared completion, opens this weekend. An expanded-aluminum mesh projects as a screen three inches off the steel-and-concrete facade. At night, the glass-walled lobby and first floor galleries will allow views of the artwork.