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The Metropolitan Museum of Art has spent more than 150 years making room for ancient sculptures, medieval armor and just about everything in between. Now, its modern and contemporary art is getting more room to breathe: The museum broke ground today, September 1, on a redesigned wing that will add larger galleries, new terraces and year-round skyline views to its Fifth Avenue home.
The Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing is expected to open in 2030. Designed by Mexico City-born architect Frida Escobedo, it will occupy the space of the museum’s current modern-art wing and stay within the existing building’s footprint. (Escobedo is the first woman to design a wing in The Met’s 156-year history, BTW.)
The Met says the new five-story wing will contain 69,500 square feet of exhibition space, nearly 50-percent more than the current wing. Galleries with ceilings ranging from 11 to 22 feet will give large installations room to breathe, while smaller works will have spaces scaled to suit them. The aim is to make it easier to encounter 20th- and 21st-century art alongside the museum’s older collections, rather than treating it as a separate stop on a very long walk.
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“The Met’s new wing will transform how we present 20th- and 21st-century art, expanding our galleries and connecting our modern and contemporary art collection more closely to the thousands of years of art housed within the Museum,” director and CEO Max Hollein said in the museum’s announcement.
Escobedo’s design calls for a limestone lattice across the exterior, with upper floors set back so the wing sits below The Met’s Fifth Avenue facade. Up top, about 18,500 square feet of outdoor space will span two floors. The Cantor Roof Garden will move to an expanded fourth-floor terrace and a fifth-floor café will offer a place to rest your museum feet. Windows and indoor spaces on the upper floors will let visitors take in Central Park and skyline views even when rooftop weather is less than optimal.
The project also includes new elevators, ramps and clearer routes between wings. According to The Met, it has raised $670 million to cover construction and part of an endowment to operate the wing.
Four years is a long wait for a new rooftop perch, so in the meantime, The Met says modern and contemporary works will remain on view elsewhere in the museum, with rotating installations planned throughout construction.