Met Museum Breaks Ground on New Modern and Contemporary Wing
Mexican architect Frida Escobedo joined museum leadership and elected officials to celebrate “la primera piedra,” or “the first stone,” of the forthcoming Tang Wing.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art officially broke ground today, September 15, on its forthcoming Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art, designed by Frida Escobedo. The Mexican architect joined Met Director Max Hollein and elected officials in a morning ceremony at the museum's European Sculpture Court.
Escobedo, the first woman to design a wing at The Met, also clinched another “first” earlier this year, when she participated in the museum's inaugural public event held entirely in Spanish. At today's ceremony, she began her remarks with a nod to a Spanish expression for groundbreaking — la primera piedra, or “the first stone” — a phrase that made her think of the four piles of uncarved stone blocks atop the columns on The Met's Fifth Avenue facade. The curious pyramidal slabs are a vestige of architect Richard Morris Hunt's 1894 expansion plan, which called for sculpted statues that never materialized.
“It suggested the idea of becoming — that architecture, and perhaps institutions too, are never entirely finished,” Escobedo said in her address. “They continue changing, accumulating, and adding meaning.”
Replacing the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing at the southwest corner of The Met's building complex, the 126,000-square-foot Tang Wing will expand the museum's 20th- and 21st-century art galleries by nearly 50%, adding 69,500 square feet of exhibition space while improving accessibility and reducing energy consumption. The new wing is slated to open in 2030.
