Frick Collection Unveils $160M Expansion Project

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Upper East Side fine arts museum The Frick Collection — located in a mansion on Fifth Avenue between East 70th and 71st streets — unveiled the design for a $160 million expansion project Wednesday.

The Frick Collection's expansion project will enhance the visitor experience for the facility's museum, library and gardens, increase access to the original Frick residence and create new exhibition, conservation and educational spaces, museum officials said.

"The project harmoniously integrates the historic with the new and addresses all areas of the institution, which encompasses a number of buildings and additions made over the course of the past century," Frick Collection Director Ian Wardropper said in a statement.

Key improvements include:

• Opening a series of intimate rooms on the second floor of the residence as permanent collection galleries;
• A new special exhibition area on the museum’s main floor;
• Creation of a dedicated education center, the first in the Frick’s history, and a state-of-the-art auditorium;
• Enhancements to facilitate visitor circulation and ADA-accessibility throughout the Frick, including a publicly-accessible passageway between the museum and library.
• New conservation laboratories for museum and library collections.
• Upgrades to the security, energy efficiency and long-term preservation the Frick’s collection and buildings.

Selldorf Architects was tapped to helm the project, museum officials announced Wednesday.

"Our proposed design is the result of an unwavering commitment to maintaining the intimate experience of viewing art at the Frick that is unique and special to so many—myself included," Annabelle Selldorf, principal and lead designer of Selldorf Architects, said in a statement. "With interstitial architectural interventions, we are able to provide clear and coherent new spaces with seamless connections that will allow the Frick to more thoroughly enact its mission in the twenty-first century."

Construction on the expansion project is expected to begin in 2020 and take two years to complete, museum officials said Wednesday.

The expansion will be the Frick Collection's first major upgrade since 1935, when the historic building was converted from a private residence into a public museum and library. The mansion was originally constructed as a home for industrialist, financier and art collector Henry Clay Frick.

Rendering courtesy Selldorf Architects