A brutalist icon that became one of New York's great exhibition spaces — where Marcel Breuer's architecture is as important as the art inside.
- Marcel Breuer's brutalist architecture
- Granite and concrete façade
- Dramatic cantilevered volumes
- Deep-set windows
- Monumental interior spaces
- Madison Avenue setting
- Changing cultural/exhibition uses
Essential for architecture lovers; conditional for art travellers.
Don't think of The Breuer simply as a former museum. Think of it as one of the artworks of New York's museum landscape.
Don’t miss The inverted-pyramid form and granite façade from Madison Avenue.
Nearby route ideas
New York Museum Architecture
The Breuer + Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum + The Met
An excellent route through three radically different approaches to museum architecture:
Breuer → Wright → Beaux-Arts / McKim, Mead & White
Upper East Side Art + Architecture
The Met → The Breuer → Guggenheim
One of the strongest art-and-architecture walks in New York.
Brutalism + Modernism New York
The Breuer + Lever House + Seagram Building + UN Headquarters
For travellers interested in the architectural transformation of mid-century New York.
The former Whitney → Whitney Museum
A fascinating institutional story:
The Breuer → Whitney Museum of American Art
The two buildings show how the Whitney's architectural identity evolved from Breuer's 1960s modernism to Renzo Piano's contemporary museum architecture.
About
Former museum site / historic building. The Breuer building on Madison Avenue was designed by Marcel Breuer and opened in 1966 as the Whitney Museum of American Art's new home. The Metropolitan Museum of Art later operated the building as The Met Breuer from 2016 to 2020. Since the Met's departure, the building has not operated as a permanent public museum. The Frick Collection has also used the building for temporary exhibitions during its renovation period.
Worth the trip
Because The Breuer is one of the defining examples of 20th-century museum architecture in New York. Even without a permanent collection, the building itself is a destination for architecture lovers.
© Google The Breuer Sotheby's New York
