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 trendy and up to date wing, a $550m venture 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 venture—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 one in every of right now’s most related architects,” Max Hollein, the Met’s director and chief govt, mentioned in an announcement, including that her “elegant, up to date 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 trendy and up to date artwork wing, which occupies the southwest nook of the museum’s Central Park complicated, won’t develop the museum‘s footprint however will add practically 50% extra exhibition house, bringing the wing’s whole gallery areas to round 71,000 sq. ft.

The stepped, angular design includes a façade with a limestone latticework that the architect’s studio says “evokes the celosía—a standard Mexican breeze wall with deep historic roots in Spanish, Center Jap and African architectural traditions”. The design additionally consists of 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 mix of exhibition galleries and a terrace will showcase commissioned up to date artworks, echoing the aim of the present rooftop terrace. The fifth ground will host momentary 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 venture. Along with Escobedo’s agency, the workforce for the venture consists of govt architect Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, Nelson Byrd Woltz Panorama Architects and the engineering corporations Kohler Ronan and Thornton Tomasetti. The constructing will embody a number of environmentally pleasant options—equivalent to 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 superbly continues that legacy via her sensible design that pulls inspiration, partly, from the museum’s assortment and current structure. I stay up for seeing the reworked wing dropped at life, offering an enhanced platform for various inventive voices and views to be seen and celebrated.”

The Tang Wing venture is the largest, however on no account the one, capital venture within the works or already underway on the Met’s Central Park campus. The museum is within the remaining levels 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 one in every of its most outstanding retail areas into further gallery house for its Costume Institute, which organises wildly widespread style exhibitions. As well as, the Met just lately accomplished each a rehang of its American Wing to mark its centennial and a brand new interactive studying centre.