A Design for Continuity and Change

Published on the occasion of the 2025 reopening of The Frick Collection followingits renovation. Seamlessly interweaving the new with the historic, the renovationby Selldorf Architects preserves the institution’s Gilded Age grandeur and sense oftranquility while making more of the museum accessible and adding important newamenities.A museum of memorable rooms and superb Old Master holdings, The Frick Collection,the former home of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, is one of New York City’s mostbeloved art institutions. Designed by Thomas Hastings of the New York firm of Carrèreand Hastings, the original Fifth Avenue mansion was completed in 1914 and servedthe Frick family until 1931. With John Russell Pope’s expansion of the mansion in 1935,which included the addition of a library (today’s esteemed Frick Art Research Library),the residence was converted into a public museum.The goal of the renovation was to honor the architectural legacy and uniquecontemplative atmosphere of the Frick while adding new space and criticalinfrastructure updates. Visitors will enjoy the enhanced functionality of the institution,and its improved climate controls will ensure the preservation of the collectionand the house for generations to come. As Barry Bergdoll writes, “The restored andexpanded Frick Collection answers the demands of a twenty-first-century museum inways at once pragmatic, ingenious, and so resolved that we almost forget how difficultSelldorf’s assignment was. Her skillful design solves local problems and accommodatesnew functions, even as it masters the tension at the heart of the challenge betweentransformation and the desire to appear unchanged.”A Design for Continuity and Change explores the history of this ambitious project,the selection of the award-winning New York–based firm Selldorf Architects, thegoals of the project and how they were met, the preservation issues and strategies,and the broader context of this transformation. The book is richly illustrated withphotography of the refurbished interiors and exteriors of the renovated building, plansand elevations, and a photographic essay by the acclaimed architectural photographerHélène Binet, whose work was the subject of Light Lines: The Architectural Photographsof Hélène Binet, at the Royal Academy in London.