From Hated to Hero: The Incredible Transformation of a Brutalist Landmark

The Revival of a Controversial Masterpiece

Preservationists held their breath when auction house Sotheby's purchased the Whitney Museum of American Art's former home on Madison Avenue for $100 million. This was no ordinary building - it was Marcel Breuer's brooding, magnificent upside-down ziggurat, a Brutalist masterpiece from 1966 that had polarized New Yorkers for decades.

The Breuer building on Madison Avenue is an upside down ziggurat quarantined by concrete walls from neighboring buildings

A Building That Divided a City

When it first opened, the building was described as "the most disliked building in New York" by Ada Louise Huxtable, The New York Times's former architecture critic. This gray granite fortress featured concrete walls that quarantined the Whitney from neighboring buildings, with a stepped-cantilever facade that retreated from Madison Avenue behind a dry moat - as if assuming a defensive posture.

Authors of the 1967 "A.I.A. Guide to New York" even joked about boiling oil being spilled from the Whitney's Cyclopean window on visitors crossing Breuer's concrete bridge. Yet despite its imposing exterior, the lobby of slate, stone and bush-hammered concrete revealed a cocoon of cool, understated luxury and sculptural finesse.

The Irony of Preservation

The building's history is rich with irony. In 1978, Breuer himself precipitated a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reshaped American preservation law when he designed a proposed office tower for Grand Central Terminal. The court upheld New York City's preservation law, blocking Breuer's plan and establishing precedent for preservation laws across all 50 states and more than 500 municipalities.

Less than a decade later, the tables turned when the Whitney wanted to expand Breuer's own building. Preservationists who had opposed Breuer's Grand Central scheme now rallied to defend his Whitney design against expansion proposals from architects including Michael Graves and Rem Koolhaas.

Klimts in the redesigned fourth floor galleries of the new headquarters of Sotheby's, with the old slate floor and big window overlooking Madison Avenue

The Thoughtful Transformation

After the Whitney moved to its new Renzo Piano building in 2015, the Breuer building was leased to The Met and then the Frick Collection. Seeing masterpieces like the Frick's Rembrandts and Titians in Breuer's abstract spaces made both the art and the architecture feel fresh and relevant again.

Now, after a thoughtful renovation by the New York office of Herzog & de Meuron, the storied Swiss architecture firm, the building reopens as Sotheby's new headquarters. The approach has been deeply respectful, with minimal structural changes and an emphasis on materiality and crisp detail typical of Herzog & de Meuron.

What Actually Changed

The renovation mostly involved surface changes:

• Steam-cleaning of Breuer's gorgeous walls
• Conversion of previously closed galleries back to public exhibition spaces
• Restoration of axial views to Breuer's trapezoidal, gun-port windows
• Addition of a fifth-floor mezzanine turned into a V.I.P. skybox with mirrored glass
• Sleek vitrines added to some of Breuer's built-in lobby furniture
• One major structural alteration: a service elevator on the north end for moving art

Herzog & de Meuron spruced up the lobby gallery, here showing works by Roy Lichtenstein that Sotheby's is selling

The Biggest Change of All

Perhaps the most significant transformation is that entry to the building will now be free - unlike when it was a ticketed museum. At Sotheby's, while the art is for sale, anyone can walk in to peruse the exhibitions.

The story of the Breuer building follows the classic architectural love story arc: we can't stand a work of architecture until we fight not to lose it. What was once hated has become loved, and through thoughtful, respectful intervention, this Brutalist behemoth has found new life while honoring its original vision.