Modellus Novus has completed its redesigned new Frenchette Bakery space at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

The project replaces the museum’s closed original USHG Restaurant on the ground floor with a new café that serves as the first flagship for the popular West Side eatery, which opened in October of 2020. 

The plan retains as much of the open concept intended by Renzo Piano for the new eight-year-old museum, confounding a sense of interiority to “create connections between diners and their surrounding community.” Artist Rashid Johnson’s site-specific installation New Grace completes the design, complementing a 70-foot central light fixture above the bar that's made from wood and rice paper. 

The Whitney says the Bakery will help recharge their improved food and beverage program and will be joined later by an eighth-floor space also designed by the firm for 2024. Modellus Novus says this will become a “hidden gem above the city.” Another commission from artist Dyani White Hawk will anchor the former Studio Bar space. Johnson says he considers his contribution, a characteristic assemblage of shelving, plants, and a steel structural grid, to be almost like a poem.

“For both the museum’s ground-floor and eighth-floor dining spaces, our aim is to create holistic, unified environments that center the artists and their work while offering guests serene spaces to enjoy the museum’s enriched culinary offerings,” Partner Jonathan Garnett says of the opportunity. “It’s been a privilege to collaborate closely with Rashid Johnson and Dyani White Hawk throughout every step of the design process to ensure the new spaces seamlessly integrate art and architecture, as well as celebrate the museum’s intent to welcome the public through remarkable transparency and clear sight lines to the Hudson River and city views beyond.”

The project follows successful commissions for the new Tatiana restaurant at Lincoln Center and a pair of spaces for the Michelin star COTE brand in New York and Miami. Frenchette Bakery's co-owners Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr said finally that they were "excited to become a more permanent part" of the Whitney's 97-year history. Costs for the project were not made public by the museum.