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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... View full entry
Gone are the days when the easiest way to make an architectural splash was with a shimmering and photogenic stand-alone building, fancy forms torquing this way and that. Along with exploring new takes on regional or vernacular design traditions, the field’s top talents are taking on projects that reimagine existing institutions or public spaces — or forge new links among them. — Christopher Hawthorne, The New York Times
In a new piece for The New York Times, Yale School of Architecture senior critic Christopher Hawthorne explores how architects are striving to rejuvenate downtown areas across the U.S., where hybrid work schedules and negative perceptions have led to reduced vibrancy. While converting commercial... View full entry
Until I worked with Ian Wardropper at the Frick, I don’t think I made it clear to myself that I’m a practical person. I’m a visual person. I think about how things go together. I have very strong opinions about what is beautiful, but at some point I realized it’s about something bigger than that. Architecture is such a real profession, and we can imbue it with all kinds of theoretical thinking, but it’s pretty basic when you’re working in the public realm. — Vogue
Annabelle Selldorf is working remotely from her summer home in Maine these days, she tells Vogue. Among the projects covered are her debated Sainsbury Wing redesign (“Many years down the road, this will be remembered as a Venturi, Scott Brown building and not as a Selldorf building [...].”)... View full entry
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 New York Times
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... View full entry
The Frick Collection will vacate its Brutalist temporary home on New York’s Madison Avenue and return to Henry Clay Frick’s historic Fifth Avenue mansion in 2024. [...]
The fate of the Breuer building—which was for decades the home of the Whitney Museum of American Art and, following that museum’s relocation to the Meatpacking District, a temporary outpost of the Metropolitan Museum of Art dubbed the Met Breuer—is unknown.
— The Art Newspaper
“Our residency at Frick Madison has been rewarding and productive, and we look forward to the remaining months of our time at 945 Madison Avenue, as we continue to gain new insights into our collection by seeing it reframed in this unprecedented way,” the Frick’s director Ian Wardropper said... View full entry
The Breuer building, an architectural icon and the former longtime home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, could soon have a new owner. The Whitney is considering the sale of the building and brokers are compiling lists of potential buyers, according to sources in the art world and real estate.
Now the multi-million-dollar question is: If the building is sold, can it be developed?
— Artnet
The brutalist masterpiece know colloquially for its architect Marcel Breuer opened as the new home of the Whitney Museum in 1966. The building exchanged hands in 2015 as the Met expanded past Fifth Avenue for the first time to make room for the collection of billionaire cosmetics heir Leonard A... View full entry
While the Frick Collection's Gilded Age mansion in Manhattan undergoes a $160-million expansion and renovation project led by Selldorf Architects with Executive Architect Beyer Blinder Belle, highlights of the substantial art collection have found a temporary new home for the next two years... View full entry
The Met Breuer building in New York City is set to become the new temporary home to the Frick Collection as the Frick's flagship facilities undergo an expansion and renovation led by Selldorf Architects. The Marcel Breuer-designed Brutalist style building was the original home of the Whitney... View full entry
Henry Clay Frick’s venerable Old Master paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and porcelain seem destined for a change of scene.
In an unusual game of musical chairs, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Frick Collection announced today (21 September) that the Met will vacate the Brutalist Breuer building on Madison Avenue in 2020. Its departure will make way for the Frick to move in late that year while its mansion undergoes a renovation and expansion five blocks away.
— The Art Newspaper
Click here to catch up with Archinect's coverage of the not entirely undramatic Frick Collection expansion saga. View full entry
In a major victory for the Frick Collection, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on Tuesday approved the museum’s latest plan to expand and renovate its 1914 Gilded Age mansion — the institution’s fourth such attempt to gain more space for its exhibitions and public programs. [...]
Some critics were disappointed by Tuesday’s vote. Theodore Grunewald, a preservationist, called it “a vote for blandness.”
— The New York Times
The approved proposal represented a revised version of the Frick Collection expansion scheme, taking into consideration concerns brought forward by the Stop Irresponsible Frick Development preservationist group at an impassioned four-hour public hearing in May. The expansion plans were designed... View full entry
At an impassioned four-hour public hearing [...] by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), around 50 members of the public, as well as Selldorf, the Frick’s director Ian Wardropper and members of the commission debated the proposed $160m Annabelle Selldorf Architects-designed expansion and renovation of the Frick Collection in New York. The LPC remains undecided on the project, which is due to break ground in 2020 [...]. — The Art Newspaper
"Many of the strongest criticisms throughout the hearing, particularly on this multi-storey library extension, came from local residents, although the neighbourhood speakers overall seemed split on the project," The Art Newspaper reports. Take a closer look at the expansion scheme, designed... View full entry
After a rough start, The Frick Collection unveiled their new expansion design by Selldorf Architects, who was appointed for the renovation job in 2016. Currently slated for a 2020 groundbreaking, the project is the Frick's first comprehensive upgrade to its buildings since they opened to... View full entry
“She’s somebody who has a clear vision of respect for historical buildings but at the same time has a clean, elegant, modernist aesthetic that is very much about welcoming visitors today,” said Ian Wardropper, the Frick’s director.
In coming up with a new design, Ms. Selldorf has been charged with improving circulation in the Frick’s galleries, library and public spaces, while maintaining the museum’s existing footprint and preserving its jewel-box character.
— nytimes.com
Prior plans for the museum's addition (designed by Davis Brody Bond) were dropped by the Frick in June of last year, partially due to a letter of protest written on behalf of 51 artists and architects. This past March, the Frick put forward an RFQ for a new revision plan, and now that Selldorf has... View full entry
With The Frick Collection’s garden saved, the museum is moving forward with a new preservationist-friendly plan for expansion...The Frick Collection, looking to realize a revised expansion for the institution, has put forward a request for qualifications to a chosen group of architectural firms.
The Frick plans to announce its selected finalist later this year, and plans to reveal designs in 2017.
— Observer
Museum director Ian Wardropper tells The New York Times that 20 firms have been invited to submit RFQs.Previously on Archinect:Frick Collection drops controversial expansion planLeading artists call to action against the Frick expansion plans View full entry
The Frick Collection has yielded.
Facing a groundswell of opposition to a proposed renovation that would have eliminated a gated garden to make way for a six-story addition, the museum — long admired for its intimate scale — has decided to abandon those plans and start over from scratch. [...]
With the proposed renovation, designed by Davis Brody Bond, the Frick, on East 70th Street in Manhattan, had sought to increase its exhibition space [...].
— nytimes.com
Previously: Leading artists call to action against the Frick expansion plans View full entry
