Enfilade

A rendering of The Frick Collection from East 70th Street in New York (Credit: Selldorf Architects). According to the press release from The Frick, the $160million project, scheduled to begin in 2020, “encompasses approximately 60,000 square feet of repurposed space and 27,000 square feet of new construction.”

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From The New York Times:

Robin Pogrebin, “Frick Collection, With Fourth Expansion Plan, Crosses Its Fingers Again,” The New York Times (4 April 2018).

The irony is not lost on Ian Wardropper, the director of the Frick Collection: The very gated garden that upended the museum’s previous attempt to renovate its 1914 Gilded Age mansion is now the centerpiece of its revised design.

In 2015, preservationists, designers, critics and architects successfully opposed the Frick’s plans to remove the garden on East 70th Street, designed by the British landscape architect Russell Page, to make way for a six-story addition, by Davis Brody Bond.

The new plan, by the architect Annabelle Selldorf—which the Frick board approved Wednesday—has situated several new elements precisely so that each provides a tranquil view of the garden: a renovated lobby; a newly created second level above the reception hall; and a new education center, cafe and expanded museum shop.

In addition, the garden will be restored by Lynden B. Miller, a garden designer and preservationist, in keeping with Page’s original vision.

And rather than build over the garden, as previously planned, the Frick will now build beneath it, creating a 220-seat underground auditorium to better accommodate educational and public programs. . .

The full article is available here»