It's sometimes hard to hear what Frida Escobedo is saying. She is modest, reserved, and a self-proclaimed introvert.
But don't mistake the quiet atmosphere for cowardice or respect. Despite the weight of being the first woman to design a wing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 154-year history, and at 45 years old, relatively young for such a major architectural commission, Escobedo brought bold conviction to a new vision for the museum. A modern and contemporary art gallery opened last month.
“I have a kind personality,” Escobedo said in a recent interview at her West Village design studio. “But I can be very persistent.”
Given the large number of formidable stakeholders with strong opinions, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's trustees and curators to city government officials (the museum occupies public land) and the art museum, Escobedo said this modest That strength seems to have enabled him to pull off a project that could have intimidated even the most experienced architect. Guardians of Central Park with wings thrusting into them.
“She's very considerate, but she's also very confident in what she's proposing,” said David Breslin, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “This is an enlightening idea about what leadership really means.”
On a recent winter's day, Escobedo, a Mexico City native, led a reporter along the walls of her studio, which are filled with designs and image boards. She spoke about her current project, the National Black Theater's new home in Harlem, in collaboration with New York City-based Handel Architects. Major renovation of Center Pompidou in Paris in collaboration with French studio Moreau Kusunoki. A housing project in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn.
The office, where 15 New York staffers clicked away at computers, was clean, orderly, and quiet. Escobedo exudes a sense of order and singular focus, depicting that there are almost no boundaries between work and play.
“It's really fun. It feels like I'm not really working. And I have a great team that I spend so much time with that it's like we're relatives,” she said. “My office is, in a sense, my home.”
Escobedo's presence has an undeniable power, in part because of her striking Frida Kahlo-esque beauty (with prominent eyebrows), but she also has an undeniable influence over her name. He said it was not named after him. She has lived half her life in Mexico City, and credits that influence and the deep-rooted spirit of independence that led her to found her own architecture firm there at just 23 years old.
“I've never worked at another studio,” she said. “I started the firm when I was very young and, naturally, I had very little funding to develop the projects that I was trying to do. The idea was always there, and how to achieve it using simple materials, rather than relying on overly sophisticated details or luxurious, intricate finishes.
“It was more about the big gesture,” she continued. “What does it say? How do you work with light and other simpler means to achieve something interesting and engaging?”
Mr. Escobedo was a relatively unknown architect when he was chosen to design the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new wing in 2022, but he had a number of failures before finally gaining traction.
Her body of work was mostly temporary structures, such as the Lisbon Architecture Triennial, the Chicago Architecture Biennale, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She had limited experience working in the United States.
However, after an international search, the Metropolitan Museum of Art chose Escobedo over the other four companies. The cost of Ensemble Studio, Lacaton & Vassal, SO-IL, and David Chipperfield's earlier wing designs had ballooned to $800 million (her work cost $500 million). 50 million dollars).
Max Hollein, director of the museum, said, “She has a deep understanding of art and of museums as public spaces,'' adding, “She is not someone whose architectural language is overwhelming.'' ” he added.
“When we organize exhibitions and commission artists, we trust the voices of people to project into the future,” Hollein continued. Her father, Hans Hollein, was a Pritzker Prize-winning architect. “We knew she was the right architect to do this.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's commission is an important step forward for Escobedo, especially considering the barriers of sexism and skepticism she has repeatedly had to overcome in her home country.
“It's really tiring. It's very challenging,” she said. “People don't have the same level of trust in young women as, say, older men, so it's difficult to get commissions.”
But rather than being intimidated by such skeptics, Escobedo has consistently defied them. “I'm going to prove you wrong, I'm going to succeed,” she said. “I needed to say something and do something.”
Born in Mexico City in 1979 to a doctor father and sociologist mother, young Frida always worked with her hands, drawing and making models, before deciding to become an artist. was cautious.
“It's always felt a little scary to express myself and my emotions and turn them into something I want to give to someone,” she said. “So design and art felt like a safer space for me.”
Escobedo studied architecture at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and later earned a master's degree in art, design, and public domain from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Surrounded by artists, scientists and designers, the Harvard program “changed my life,” Escobedo said.
“It showed me that it's true. Architecture is not just about developing housing or doing retail or hospitality or doing these very traditional things. I mean,” she said. “It could be something else. It could be doing an installation, it could be making furniture, it could be writing about it, it could be a performance. It's all about space. We were talking.”
That interdisciplinary sensibility influences Escobedo's approach to design. “It's great to talk to architects who also have the heart of an artist,” said Petrit Harirage, a Kosovan artist who created last year's Metropolitan Museum of Art rooftop commission. “We can talk about space, we can talk about color, we can talk about love.” Hariraj first met Escobedo at the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale. So she designed a circular, tilting stage that would allow the performers to rise as the audience grew.
She initially worked primarily in Mexico, working on projects such as the expansion of La Tallera Siqueiros, a museum, workshop, and artists' residence in Cuernavaca. Renovation of Hotel Boca Chica, Acapulco's 1950s celebrity destination. And the El Eco Pavilion at the El Eco Experimental Museum in Mexico City is a site-specific installation.
Escobedo's breakout moment came in 2018. At 38, she became the youngest architect at the time to design London's Serpentine Pavilion, a prestigious annual commission.
Her design featured a partially enclosed courtyard surrounding a triangular pool, with lattice walls made of gray concrete roof tiles and a curved mirrored canopy. The axis of Escobedo's pavilion referenced the prime meridian, a global marker of time and distance established in 1851 in Greenwich, England.
“She essentially creates sculptures that are only complete when people are present,” said Hans-Ulrich Obrist, the Serpentine's artistic director, adding that Escobedo's designs “create connections between the local and the global; So we're establishing a kind of balance,” he added. We were confident that she would continue to do great things. ”
From there, attention began to gather. In 2019, Escobedo was honored as an International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and her studio was named one of the world's “100+ Best Architecture Firms” by architecture magazine Domus. She went on to teach at Columbia University, Harvard University, Rice University, and Yale University.
In 2021, Escobedo was selected to collaborate with the National Black Theater and development company Ray on a project called “Ray Harlem,” which includes housing, retail, and performance space. “It was as if she was communicating to both the future and the past,” said Thad Lythcott, the theater's chief executive. “And they understood the importance of spaces built to bring communities together and amplify the spirit and soul of people.
“We were nervous to choose the youngest architect ever with the least experience in the United States,” added Lythcott, whose mother, Barbara Ann Teare, founded the firm in 1968. Here it becomes Frida's flagship. ”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art quickly raised her profile, but apparently it's not her ego.
Pompidou president Laurent Le Bon said of Escobedo: “She is not like that starchitect.” “She would like to know about the history of the building.''
Escobedo's design for the Oscar L. Tan and Agnes Hsu Tan wing, named after the major donor, connects the gallery to the rest of the museum and opens to the city and park through new windows. The building is surrounded by limestone. lattice screen.
Among the architect's influences are the Bauhaus textile artist Ani Albers, the ancient pyramids of Huaca Pucllana in Peru, and the pre-Columbian Peruvian city of Chan Chan.
“I'm interested in the idea of materiality and how it can reflect a particular change or formation, or how it can absorb time and acquire the patina of time. '' Escobedo said. “Materials that can be enjoyed over time and materials that can express subtle changes”
The architects began the Metropolitan Museum of Art project by spending a year at the museum, getting to know its facilities, art, and staff. While Escobedo welcomed the input, he also defended some design decisions, such as changing the height of the gallery. And she has managed to walk the line between careful respect for the Met's history and bravely rethinking the Met's approach to contemporary art.
“Being a good listener in an institution of this size really helps her,” said Breslin, the Metropolitan Museum of Art curator. Breslin is reassembling the collection that will fill the 70,000-square-foot gallery (the project also includes an approximately 18,600-square-foot terrace). Same goes for the cafe and new staircase). “Even in the rigor of her architecture there is a sense of calm and serenity. What she does is help bring order and calm and balance to a series of spaces that were meant to create rifts. is to do.
“It's a quiet confidence,” he added. “It's unassuming, but it has a very strong presence.”
Much like her personality, Escobedo's new wing design isn't meant to attract attention or make a fuss. Instead, she seems to approach this project as a process of gentle evolution rather than radical revision.
“One of the things I'm interested in is the idea that architecture is a living thing, that it's always changing and changing, that it needs to adapt, that it's not fixed,” she said. Ta. “It's a condition that applies to all aspects of life. Nothing is permanent.”
