A Design for Continuity and Change : The Frick Collection

Published on the occasion of the 2025 reopening of The Frick Collection following
its renovation. Seamlessly interweaving the new with the historic, the renovation
by Selldorf Architects preserves the institution's Gilded Age grandeur and sense of
tranquility while making more of the museum accessible and adding important new
amenities.
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 most
beloved art institutions. Designed by Thomas Hastings of the New York firm of Carrère
and Hastings, the original Fifth Avenue mansion was completed in 1914 and served
the 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 unique
contemplative atmosphere of the Frick while adding new space and critical
infrastructure updates. Visitors will enjoy the enhanced functionality of the institution,
and its improved climate controls will ensure the preservation of the collection
and the house for generations to come. As Barry Bergdoll writes, "The restored and
expanded Frick Collection answers the demands of a twenty-first-century museum in
ways at once pragmatic, ingenious, and so resolved that we almost forget how difficult
Selldorf's assignment was. Her skillful design solves local problems and accommodates
new functions, even as it masters the tension at the heart of the challenge between
transformation 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, the
goals 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 with
photography of the refurbished interiors and exteriors of the renovated building, plans
and elevations, and a photographic essay by the acclaimed architectural photographer
Hélène Binet, whose work was the subject of Light Lines: The Architectural Photographs
of Hélène Binet, at the Royal Academy in London.