the frick is back: tour new york's beloved museum ahead of its upcoming reopening

selldorf architects’ restoration completes in new York

Nearly five years after shuttering for its most extensive renovation in nearly a century, the gallery lights are back on at The Frick Collection in New York. Led by Selldorf Architects, a firm known for its sensitive restoration works, the project is subtle, graceful, and designed to last for decades. In collaboration with executive architects Beyer Blinder Belle, this reimagining balances reverence with restraint, breathing new life into one of the city’s last great Gilded Age residences. designboom visited the museum ahead of its April 17th opening to explore the newly-renovated galleries — watch our video for a first look inside!

More than art, The Frick is about architecture as a form of cultural continuity. Selldorf Architects approached the project with the delicacy of a conservator restoring a Botticelli — respecting the 1914 Carrère and Hastings-designed mansion while threading in precisely calibrated interventions. The most significant structural moves — such as the reconstruction of the rear facade and a raised roofline at the Reception Hall — are hidden in plain sight, subordinated to the original building’s stately composition. A restrained palette of Indiana limestone, Italian marbles, oakwood floors, and bronze detailing ensures seamless integration between old and new, while state-of-the-art conservation studios and education facilities offer a behind-the-scenes upgrade to match the elegance up front.

70th St. entrance, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Nicholas Venezia, video © designboom + studio crow

A Mansion Unlocks Its Second Story

The Frick Collection has long brought a sense of intimacy to New York — a Rembrandt inches from your nose, a Vermeer without the velvet rope. After the restoration led by the team at Selldorf Architects, that intimacy now expands vertically. For the first time in its history, the second floor of Henry Clay Frick’s former residence is open to the public. Once private bedrooms and staff offices, these spaces have been carefully restored to reveal decorative ceilings, marble fireplaces, and period woodwork. Here, the architecture becomes narrative: the original bedroom of Helen Clay Frick now holds gold-ground Renaissance panels, while Henry’s own chamber hosts portraiture in tribute to his collecting passions. The building doesn’t just house the collection, it stands in dialogue with it.

Entrance Hall, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Nicholas Venezia

the frick collection’s expanded Galleries

The Frick Collection in New York has long favored quality over quantity — but with a 27,000-square-foot expansion and 60,000 square feet of reprogrammed space, there’s now room for both. Selldorf Architects’ new additions include the Ronald S. Lauder Exhibition Galleries, a purpose-built home for focused presentations. Opening this June is Vermeer’s Love Letters, which reunites three domestic masterpieces for the first time. Downstairs, a new 218-seat auditorium — with a curvilinear ceiling and reception room illuminated by a Murano glass laylight — is set to host concerts and lectures with an acoustic intimacy that rivals the Living Hall upstairs. The addition is buried beneath the 70th Street Garden, whose restoration revives Russell Page’s 1977 design, now visible from newly opened sightlines throughout the building.

Garden Court, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Joseph Coscia Jr.

The greatest intellectual asset of the Frick Collection has always been its library, founded by Helen Clay Frick in 1920. But until now, it functioned like an introverted sibling. The renovation changes that. A new internal connection now links the Frick Art Research Library directly to the museum, making visible what was once just scholarly rumor. The library’s rear facade has been rebuilt and extended, creating more room for reading rooms, archives, and conversation between disciplines. A new education center, museum shop, and café complete the experience, turning the formerly cloistered institution into a unified campus for art lovers, researchers, and students alike.

Fragonard Room, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Joseph Coscia Jr.

The renovation by Selldorf Architects is an essay in restraint. The Frick Collection’s new bronze-and-glass bridge that connects the mansion to the library could have been a statement piece — Selldorf makes it a whisper. The oak flooring in the new exhibition halls doesn’t scream ‘new wing’ — it nods toward continuity. Even the lighting, the custom Murano glass lanterns, and subtly coffered ceilings speak in the visual language of quiet luxury. It’s a modern intervention that doesn’t aim to compete with Fragonard or Gainsborough, but instead sets the scene for them to shine. This is architecture not as spectacle, but as stewardship.

The Frick Collection is once again open for quiet contemplation — and now, for expanded exploration. This renovation doesn’t crowbar modern interventions into the beloved mansion. Instead, it deepens what made the Frick unique in the first place: a sense of lived-in history, an emphasis on detail, and an architectural language that whispers rather than shouts. As museum-goers begin to reenter the halls on April 17th, 2025, they may not notice every new beam or carefully restored panel, but they’ll feel it.

Boucher Anteroom, new second-floor gallery, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Joseph Coscia Jr.

Grand Staircase, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Joseph Coscia Jr.

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South Hall, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Joseph Coscia Jr.

Library Gallery, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Joseph Coscia Jr.

Walnut Room, new second-floor gallery, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Joseph Coscia Jr.

Breakfast Room, new second-floor gallery, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Joseph Coscia Jr.

Oval Room, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Joseph Coscia Jr.

Living Hall, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Joseph Coscia Jr.

second-floor landing, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Joseph Coscia Jr.

Stephen A. Schwarzman Auditorium, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Nicholas Venezia

museum shop, gift of The Selz Foundation, East 70th St. entrance with new access ramp, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Nicholas Venezia

The Sherman Fairchild Center for Art Conservation, East 70th St. entrance with new access ramp, The Frick Collection, New York | image © Nicholas Venezia