Exterior of the Breuer Building. Photo by Max Touhey. Credit: Courtesy Sotheby’s

The Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron has been commissioned to transform the Breuer Building in New York into global headquarters for Sotheby’s. Located at 945 Madison Avenue, the edifice by the Hungarian architect Marcel Breuer, completed in 1966, was home to the Whitney Museum of American Art for fifty years, and subsequently housed the Met Breuer (a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and the Frick Collection.

After a study of the building as designed by Marcel Breuer, comparing it with its current state, the project centered on respecting and restoring what the original architect envisioned, while adapting it to the needs of an auction house and the neighborhood.

Herzog & de Meuron will work in collaboration with the New York firm PBDW Architects. Construction work is programmed to begin in 2025.