The Met’s New Tang Wing Will Give New York an Entirely New View of Modern Art

New galleries, a reimagined roof garden and views across Central Park will transform the museum’s modern and contemporary art experience.

For anyone who builds a New York trip around its museums, there is a future opening worth keeping in mind. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has broken ground on the Tang Wing, its ambitious new home for modern and contemporary art, with completion planned for 2030.

Designed by Frida Escobedo, the project promises to change the rhythm of a visit as well as the spaces in which art is displayed. There will be larger galleries, new connections between collections and places to step outside above Central Park. Escobedo is the first woman to design a new wing for the museum, according to The Met’s project overview.

What is changing at The Met?

The five-storey building will occupy the existing wing’s footprint. Around 126,000 sq ft of space will accommodate the project overall, with nearly 70,000 sq ft devoted to galleries for modern and contemporary art.

Those numbers describe only part of the ambition. The museum wants visitors to find connections between recent work and the wider collection, rather than experience contemporary art as a separate destination at the end of a long walk.

In the design unveiled by The Met, a limestone screen filters daylight across the exterior. Inside, galleries vary in height and scale, giving intimate works and larger installations different settings. The architecture offers a sequence of changing spaces, allowing the building to respond to the art.

A new perspective on Central Park

The outdoor spaces are likely to be a particular draw. The Cantor Roof Garden is to move to the fourth-floor terrace and grow to almost 10,000 sq ft. A further terrace above will add another place to pause, with landscaping by Thomas Woltz’s practice, Nelson Byrd Woltz.

Together with windows overlooking the park and Manhattan skyline, these spaces bring the city into the visit. The appeal is easy to imagine: moving from a gallery into daylight, taking in the park, then returning to the collection with a little more time and attention.

For British visitors who know Escobedo through her 2018 Serpentine Pavilion in London, the commission offers a chance to see her work at a very different scale.

When will the Tang Wing open?

The museum is targeting 2030. Its fundraising total of US$670 million covers construction and a substantial contribution towards an operating endowment; it should not be read simply as a building price.

The Cantor Roof Garden is currently closed, although modern and contemporary works continue to appear elsewhere in the museum. Travellers planning a visit before the new wing opens can check The Met’s current exhibitions and visitor information.

The Tang Wing also sits within a broader programme of renewal. The museum’s redevelopment plans include galleries for ancient West Asia and Cyprus scheduled for 2027, following the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing in 2025. New York’s great cultural addresses rarely stand still; this one is preparing for a particularly substantial next chapter.