Archinect - News

Sotheby’s taps Herzog & de Meuron and PBDW to renovate historic Breuer Building

2024-11-04T15:45:00-05:00

The opportunity to renovate one of New York City’s most important cultural buildings, Marcel Breuer’s Brutalist icon at 945 Madison Avenue, has been granted to a partnership that includes Herzog & de Meuron and PBDW Architects after Sotheby’s named the firm to the project on Monday.

H&dM's co-founder Jacques Herzog says the project will be carried out with much the same precision as the firm’s previous renovation of the Park Avenue Armory not far away in their shared Upper East Side neighborhood. Existing spaces will be adapted to meet the current business and exhibition needs, while Breuer’s "original vision" of the 58-year-old design is recuperated both within and without for both the public and private clients.

"The Breuer Building is such an amazing architectural icon of postwar modernism which we—just like all architects—have always admired. Since our early work in the 1970’s, we have always placed great importance on working with existing buildings, not only from a sustainable...

Frick Collection will reopen in April 2025 after multiyear renovation

2024-10-31T19:28:00-04:00

The opening date for the restored Frick Collection museum in New York City has been set to April 2025. The multiyear Selldorf Architects project revitalizes existing spaces while adding new galleries to the program and opening up the historic Fifth Avenue mansion's second floor to visitors for the first time. A total of 27,000 square feet of new space was created by its construction. The original facades and other decorative elements were also restored while making significant upgrades that also improved its operable efficiency.

Image courtesy Selldorf Architects

Sotheby's purchases Marcel Breuer's Brutalist Whitney for a rumored $100 million

2023-06-01T17:56:00-04:00

Sotheby’s said Thursday that it has purchased the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 1966 Brutalist building by Marcel Breuer on Madison Avenue and will move its headquarters there from York Avenue in 2025. The deal — which Sotheby’s and the Whitney refused to confirm in response to queries from The Times in April — finally resolves the fate of the Breuer building, which has hung in the balance since the Whitney moved down to the meatpacking district in 2015.

The auction house will operate a rotating exhibition space out of the building — in addition to hosting live auctions — beginning in September 2024. There are no plans for the subterranean level restaurant at this time. The Frick Collection, which has been leasing the building since the Met walked away in March of 2020, will officially move back into its $160 million Selldorf Architects-renovated original East 70th Street location in the months prior.

The New York Times reported a source mentioning the deal, which was brokered between the current landlords Whitney Museum and Sotheby's, was worth approximately $100 million. Sotheby's CEO Charles F. Stewart explained to the paper that it was simply a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we couldn’t pass up."

Bullet-proof Upper East Side townhouse designed by Rafael Viñoly lists for $50M

2018-09-25T18:42:00-04:00

Rafael Viñoly is best known for designing 432 Park, the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere, but he makes time for private homes, too–at least when they have headline-making features like a bullet-proof glass facade. His firm was first tapped to design this Upper East Side townhouse by Argentinian billionaire Eduardo Eurnekian to serve as his home and U.S. headquarters, but it looks like he instead decided to list the finished product for $50 million.