Upper East Side Museums Strike Deal To Swap Breuer Building

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The Metropolitan Museum of Art is set to ditch the Breuer building on Madison Avenue and East 75th Street just a few years after beginning programs in the space, museum officials announced.

The Met — which has used the Marcel Breuer-designed building to host modern and contemporary art exhibits since 2016 — is set to move out of the building in 2020, the museum announced. The Frick Collection, which is planning an expansion of its space on Fifth Avenue, will take over the final years of The Met's lease for the building, museum officials said in a joint statement.

Despite the planned move after just four years at the Breuer building, Met President Daniel Weiss said the institution is "extremely pleased" with its programming at the space. The Met first moved into the building after the Whitney Museum of American Art left to move into a permanent space in Chelsea.

"We are extremely pleased with the visitor response and critical acclaim for these programs and look forward to building on what we have learned in the years ahead at The Met Fifth Avenue," Weiss said in a statement.

In addition to announcing its move out of the Breuer building, Met officials announced upgrades to the modern and contemporary art spaces at its main Fifth Avenue building. Museum officials are currently "exploring a series of contemporary initiatives" at the Fifth Avenue building that will incorporate lessons learned by using the Breuer space. An upcoming renovation of the modern and contemporary art spaces at the Fifth Avenue building is expected to cost less than $500 million, which represents a project of lesser scale than a reservation put on hold in 2017, the New York Times first reported.

In some ways, the land deal represents the diverging paths of the two Upper East Side institutions. While the Met loses space and downgrades its renovation plans, the Frick Collection has secured temporary space needed for a seamless expansion of its facilities.

"The Frick has been exploring ways to ensure that our visitors can continue to enjoy our collections and have access to our library resources and education programs, as we look forward to the renovation of our home," Ian Wardropper, director of The Frick Collection, said in a statement."

"Collaborating with The Met on a temporary initiative at the Breuer building would enable us to do just that, a mere five blocks away, during a time when the Frick would otherwise need to be closed completely to the public."

In June, the city Landmarks Preservation Commission approved plans for $160 million expansion of the Frick Collection's Fifth Avenue mansion. The project will repurpose more than 60,000 square feet of existing space as well as add space for a administrative spaces, a new auditorium, a cafe, a gift shop and an education center. The expansion will also add gallery space to the museum in an effort to accommodate its growing art collection.

The expansion project, led by Selldorf Architects, is expected to begin in 2020 and take two years to complete, museum officials said. The expansion will be the Frick Collection's first major renovation 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.

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