Daily Management Review

Frick Madison: Xavier F. Salomon Discusses the Transformation from Mansion to Bauhaus


03/17/2021


After three years’ planning, the Frick Collection has just reopened in Marcel Breuer’s Brutalist 945 Madison Avenue, on lease from the Met while the historic East 70th Street mansion undergoes renovation. We talked to chief curator Xavier F. Salomon about this extraordinary marriage of Modernism and old masters.



by Andrew Ayers

You’ve had to move the Frick Collection out of its historic home for renovation. What does that involve?
Xavier Salomon:
 It’s both a renovation and an enhancement project, which will take a couple of years. While doing the renovation, we’re going to make some discreet new additions that will allow us to have a proper temporary-exhibition space, as well as a new lecture theater and offices. Our current offices will move out of the second floor of the mansion to make way for ten extra galleries where we can display a lot more of the collection. Our initial idea was to keep the house open and do the renovation and expansion in phases, but that proved impossible.... Read more...