Frida Escobedo, the Mexican architect who will make history with the new MET wing in New York

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has placed one of the largest transformations in its 156-year history in the hands of Frida Escobedo, the Mexican architect tasked with designing the new wing dedicated to modern and contemporary art.

The MET announced its choice on March 14, 2022, after an international search involving five firms, whose working methods, collaborative capacity, and proposals were evaluated over five months.

Escobedo has recounted that she initially believed the museum was seeking to learn about her work to add her to its archive of architects or to entrust her with a small project, until she received the invitation to compete against some of the most renowned studios in the world.

Her appointment made her the first woman and the youngest architect selected to design a MET building, an institution that for more than a century and a half had commissioned its major spaces exclusively from men.

Construction of the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang wing formally began on September 15, 2026, during a ceremony led by Escobedo along with executives, donors, and New York authorities.

The project is scheduled to be completed and open to the public in 2030, when the museum's modern and contemporary art collection will occupy its new home.

The intervention will not renovate the entire MET, but rather its current space for the 20th- and 21st-century collections, a section that for years has faced issues with circulation, integration, and capacity to display large-scale works.

The new wing will have five floors and span 126,000 square feet, nearly 11,700 square meters, without extending beyond the surface currently occupied by the museum or exceeding the height of its original 1880 building.

Inside, it will offer 69,500 square feet of galleries, almost 50 percent more than the currently available space, with ceilings of varying heights to accommodate large installations alongside paintings, sculptures, photographs, textiles, and more intimate pieces.

One of the most distinctive elements will be a limestone lattice that will cover part of the facade and filter light as the day progresses, a recurring feature in Escobedo's architecture and closely related to Mexican building tradition.

The design will also open up new views toward Central Park and the Manhattan skyline, in addition to incorporating approximately 18,500 square feet of outdoor spaces distributed across the terraces on the fourth and fifth floors.

The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Garden will be relocated to an expanded terrace of nearly 10,000 square feet, while the upper level will have another outdoor area and a café from which visitors can contemplate the park and the city.

"The design of the Tang wing interweaves the numerous architectural styles that make up the MET complex, honors the history of each building, and at the same time creates a space clearly belonging to our time," Escobedo stated during the start of construction.

The architect explained that her proposal is also inspired by the millions of people who pass through the museum's doors annually, under the idea that a cultural venue must be accessible not only in physical terms, but also for those seeking to feel represented within its spaces.

In addition to expanding the galleries, the project will incorporate two elevator cores, ramps, improved access from adjacent wings, and clearer circulation routes, as well as systems designed to reduce energy consumption.

The MET reported that it has raised 670 million dollars through private contributions to cover construction and finance a significant portion of the fund destined to operate the new wing, whose execution will generate around 4,000 union jobs.

Born in Mexico City, Escobedo founded her studio in 2006 and achieved international recognition in 2018, when she became the youngest architect up to that time to design the Serpentine Pavilion in London.

Her career includes the expansion of La Tallera Siqueiros in Cuernavaca, projects in Harlem and other areas of New York, as well as the renovation of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which she is developing together with the firm Moreau Kusunoki.

The new MET wing represents much more than the largest-scale project in Escobedo's career, as it places a Mexican woman at the forefront of the transformation of one of the most influential museums in the world and brings a sensibility formed in Mexico to the cultural heart of New York.