60 Years of the Breuer: The Life of a Modern Landmark

NEW YORK, USA – Six decades after its completion, the Breuer Building remains one of New York’s most revered works of modern architecture. Originally designed by Marcel Breuer for the Whitney Museum of American Art, its distinctive inverted ziggurat form and extraordinary sequence of spaces have made it an enduring landmark for the experience of art.

On Saturday, 3 October, Wim Walschap, CEO and Senior Partner at Herzog & de Meuron, joins architecture critic Paul Goldberger at Sotheby’s Madison Avenue for a conversation on the life, transformation, and continued relevance of the Breuer Building.

The discussion follows our adaptation of the building for Sotheby’s, undertaken with an approach that preserves and amplifies its defining architectural qualities while preparing it for its next use as an exhibition and auction venue. The intervention retains key elements of Breuer’s design while introducing considered upgrades to accessibility, gallery infrastructure, lighting, and visitor experience.

Walschap and Goldberger will reflect on the building’s remarkable history, from its opening in 1966 through its successive lives as home to the Whitney Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Frick Collection. The conversation will consider how the building’s material presence, spatial clarity, and powerful relationship to Madison Avenue have allowed it to evolve while retaining the bold architectural vision that defines it.

60 Years of the Breuer: The Life of a Modern Landmark
Sotheby’s Open House, Madison Avenue, New York
Saturday, 3 October, 5:00–5:45 pm