Metropolitan Museum reveals design for new $550m wing for modern and contemporary art

The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York launched the primary renderings of its revamped fashionable and modern wing, a $550m mission spanning round 126,000 sq. ft and designed by Frida Escobedo, the primary feminine architect to design a wing within the museum’s 154-year historical past. Building on the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing—named in honour of the couple who donated $125m to the mission—is anticipated to kick off in 2026 and be accomplished in 2030.

“Frida Escobedo’s terribly impressed, deeply considerate and dynamic design for the Tang Wing cements her standing as certainly one of in the present day’s most related architects,” Max Hollein, the Met’s director and chief government, mentioned in an announcement, including that her “elegant, modern design displays not solely an understanding of architectural historical past, materiality and inventive expression but additionally a deep appreciation for the Met’s mission, assortment and guests”.

Escobedo’s overhaul of the Met’s fashionable and modern artwork wing, which occupies the southwest nook of the museum’s Central Park advanced, is not going to develop the museum‘s footprint however will add practically 50% extra exhibition area, bringing the wing’s whole gallery areas to round 71,000 sq. ft.

The stepped, angular design incorporates a façade with a limestone latticework that the architect’s studio says “evokes the celosía—a conventional Mexican breeze wall with deep historic roots in Spanish, Center Japanese and African architectural traditions”. The design additionally contains 18,500 sq. ft of out of doors terraces on the wing’s fourth and fifth flooring.

“The wing will comprise a three-story base supporting recessed fourth and fifth flooring,” a consultant for Escobedo’s studio mentioned in an announcement. “On the fourth ground, a mixture of exhibition galleries and a terrace will showcase commissioned modern artworks, echoing the aim of the present rooftop terrace. The fifth ground will host short-term exhibitions, a further landscaped terrace and areas for reflection and group gathering, providing entry to privileged views of Central Park and New York Metropolis.”

As of this previous Might, the Met had secured $550m in non-public donations for the mission. Along with Escobedo’s agency, the staff for the mission contains government architect Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, Nelson Byrd Woltz Panorama Architects and the engineering companies Kohler Ronan and Thornton Tomasetti. The constructing will embrace a number of environmentally pleasant options—resembling managed daylight, on-site stormwater retention, a inexperienced roof and improved thermal efficiency—and can search LEED Gold certification from the US Inexperienced Constructing Council.

The artist and Met trustee Jordan Casteel mentioned in an announcement: “The Met has lengthy been a wellspring of creativity for artists like me, and Frida Escobedo fantastically continues that legacy by means of her good design that attracts inspiration, partially, from the museum’s assortment and present structure. I stay up for seeing the remodeled wing delivered to life, offering an enhanced platform for various inventive voices and views to be seen and celebrated.”

The Tang Wing mission is the most important, however under no circumstances the one, capital mission within the works or already underway on the Met’s Central Park campus. The museum is within the remaining phases of a $70m improve of its Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which homes African, historic American and Oceanic artwork galleries. Final yr, the museum additionally introduced plans to remodel certainly one of its most distinguished retail areas into further gallery area for its Costume Institute, which organises wildly in style trend exhibitions. As well as, the Met not too long ago accomplished each a rehang of its American Wing to mark its centennial and a brand new interactive studying centre.