A New Face at Columbus Circle, but the Lollipops Remain.

The 1964 Gallery of Modern Art at 2 Columbus Circle is being transformed into a new space for the Museum of Arts and Design. Almost everything about the building has changed, but the original ''lollipop'' columns persist. New York may not be able yet to place the name, but the lollipops will certainly be familiar. So will the shape and the pale color of Edward Durell Stone's Gallery of Modern Art, built at 2 Columbus Circle in 1964 to house Huntington Hartford's art collection. Almost everything else has changed, however, with the transformation of the building into the Museum of Arts and Design (formerly known as the American Craft Museum), designed by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture. Stone's design, initially disparaged, gained admirers in recent years, including Tom Wolfe; the architectural historians Vincent Scully and Robert A. M. Stern; and Herbert Muschamp, former architecture critic of The New York Times. Their pleas could not move the Landmarks Preservation Commission to hold a hearing on whether to designate the building. So the transformation went ahead. Though the museum is four months from opening, the new facade has now emerged from its construction cocoon. Some viewers discern the word ''HE'' in the facade. It is the inadvertent result of a late design revision calling for a band of glass where a restaurant will be. That created a crossbar, making an H. Once one sees it as a letter form, it is hard to ignore. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]