Recently, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced that it will design a new modern and contemporary art district by Mexican architect Frida Escobedo. Escobedo, 42, who designed london's Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion in 2018, was the youngest architect in the project's history at the time. The project, which will cost $500 million and includes 80,000 square feet of exhibition halls and public spaces, gives the museum the opportunity to tell a richer story of modern and contemporary art than in the past.
As early as 2014, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York had already embarked on plans to establish a district of modern and contemporary art, which has since been shelved due to financial problems. Last November, the museum announced that Tang Xiaoqian, a Chinese-American financier and longtime director of the Metropolitan Museum, and his wife, archaeologist and art historian Xu Xinmei, had donated a huge amount of $125 million to the museum. Thanks to the largest capital donation in history, the Modern and Contemporary Art District program was revived, and the district will be named after them for at least 50 years.
Tang Xiaoqian and Xu Xinmei
The new project will cost $500 million. "This is a fairly important project," responded Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "and the collection will continue to evolve and become more significant than other divisions." Of the museum's appointment to Escobedo, Hollein adds, "She has made a big splash in her architectural narrative and created a number of contemporary buildings rooted in modern standards." ”
Frida Escobedo
For such a large project, many people were surprised by the appointment of Escobedo, 42, who had previously designed mostly temporary structures and was not a household name. But she confessed that she was undaunted and excited about the task.
"I love challenges," Escobedo said in a telephone interview with The New York Times in his hometown of Mexico. "Designing pavilions for an important museum like the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the architects' dreams."
Escobedo
It's too early to talk about her design concept, she said, but "it's important to connect it to the rest of the museum, to Central Park and the city as a whole, and to showcase New York's cultural diversity." ”
The Met's appointment to Escobedo was not so clear from the start. Previously, they considered four other architects: Ensamble Studios, 2021 Pritzker Prize winner Lacaton & Vassal, SO–IL Architects, and David Chipperfield Architects, where Chipperfield's initial design cost $800 million. In a tweet that was subsequently deleted, Chipperfeld wrote that he "regrets ending a 7-year relationship with the Mets" and congratulated Escobedo on "all the best" with the project.
Escobedo was born in Mexico to doctor and demographer parents. She studied at the Ibero-American University in Mexico and later studied at Harvard University. At a time when the cultural community is increasingly sensitive to issues of equality, the choice of Escobedo seems to represent a focus on women of color. But Daniel H. Weiss, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, noted that it had nothing to do with the museum's decisions. "It's good that Escobedo can bring diversity," he says, "but that's not part of the selection criteria." ”
Wes added that Escobedo was the right person to design "an iconic building that speaks to our contemporary art" and that he expects the entire project to be completed in about 7 years.
In 2006, Escobedo established her own architectural firm in Mexico City, and the Metropolitan Area of Modern and Contemporary Art will become her largest cultural project to date, in a completely different order of magnitude from previous projects. Previously, Escobedo's work included temporary pavilions and structures designed for the Lisbon Architectural Triennale, the Chicago Architecture Biennale, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
2018 London Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion
In London, the Summer Pavilion of the Serpentine Gallery, designed by Escobedo, is a semi-enclosed courtyard with a triangular pool, plaid walls made of gray concrete roof tiles, and a curved mirror canopy.
Other major works by Escobedo include the 2012 expansion of the Ciqueros Gallery in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she transformed the home and studio of the late mural artist David Alfaro Siqueiros into a public museum. In 2008, she renovated the Hotel Boca Chica in Mexico and in 2010 designed a local installation for the Museo Experimental El Eco. In addition to building time, Escobedo is also a faculty member, having taught at Columbia, Harvard, and Rice, and is now teaching at Yale.
West Keros Gallery
Escobedo is currently working with New York-based Handel Architects on the Ray Harlem project, a joint venture with the National Black Theater that will include residential, retail and performance spaces in the future.
The Metropolitan Area of Modern and Contemporary Art will create 80,000 square feet of exhibition halls and public spaces, giving museums the opportunity to tell more stories of modern and contemporary art than in the past. In addition, the area named after Tang Xiaoqian will also include photography, drawings and prints.
Interior of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Hollein said the new area will not provide "a linear road" but rather a "more open architectural structure" with different heights, scales and lighting. Now, as pavilions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York begin to rethink the presentation of art to encompass multiple perspectives and styles, this new area of the Met will also seek to expand its narrative. "Our artistic presentation will be cross-cultural," Hollein said.
(This article is compiled from The New York Times)