Contrary to what you may have read lately, the Museum of Modern Art is intent on carefully preserving the former American Folk Art Museum next door.

At least, the part of it that is most recognizable to the public: an 82-foot-high sculptural ensemble of 63 panels, cast in a gorgeous copper-bronze alloy, each panel different from those around it. Some look like lunar landscapes, others like lava flows. They are arrayed in three planes that fold into one another as a palm would crease when closing.

Together, the panels compose the principal facade of the folk art building at 45 West 53rd Street. From 2001 to 2011, they were the face of the institution. And, since the financially troubled museum withdrew from Midtown to a smaller space near Lincoln Center, the somber facade has served as a memorial to itself, one of the first significant works of 21st-century architecture in New York, by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.

MoMA, which has owned the folk art property since 2011, said last month that it was unable to find a productive way to preserve the building, despite strenuous efforts by the architectural firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro to devise a structural and programmatic marriage between the folk art museum and abutting MoMA space.