METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART ARCHITECTURE: RICHARD MORRIS HUNT AND THE GRAND ENTRANCE ON FIFTH AVENUE

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents one of the great Beaux-Arts set-pieces of American architecture: a grand staircase rising to three monumental arches, framed by paired Corinthian columns, designed by Richard Morris Hunt and completed in 1902. It is the entrance most visitors know as "the Met" — the image that has stood, for over a century, as the public face of one of the largest and most visited museums on earth.

It belongs to the great era of American Beaux-Arts civic architecture around the turn of the twentieth century, when institutions across New York turned to classically trained architects to give the city's growing cultural life a suitably monumental face.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a designated New York City Landmark and a National Historic Landmark, and remains one of the world's leading encyclopedic art museums today.

  • Written by Gavin Paisley, director & model-maker at Chisel & Mouse based in Sussex, England.
  • Last updated: 15-Sep-26

Photograph by Hugo Schneider, licensed under CC A-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Metropolitan Museum facade architectural scale model

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What is the Metropolitan Museum of Art?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art — known simply as the Met — is an encyclopedic art museum at 1000 Fifth Avenue, facing Central Park on Manhattan's Upper East Side. It was founded in 1870 by a group of American businessmen, financiers, and artists who wanted to bring art and art education to the American public, and opened at its present site in 1880 in a red-brick, Ruskinian Gothic building by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould. That original building was poorly received and was steadily absorbed within a much larger complex over the following decades — most significantly by the museum's now-famous Fifth Avenue facade, designed by Richard Morris Hunt and completed in 1902.

Today the Met is one of the largest and most visited art museums in the world, with a collection of around two million works spanning five thousand years of human creativity.

Facts panel

Art museum, Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York City.

  • Architect (Fifth Avenue facade): Richard Morris Hunt, completed by Richard Howland Hunt, with George B. Post
  • Founded: 1870
  • Original building: 1880, by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould
  • Fifth Avenue facade and Great Hall completed: December 1902
  • Address: 1000 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York, NY 10028
  • Materials: Limestone, granite, Corinthian columns and classical ornament
  • Architectural style: Beaux-Arts
  • Current use: Encyclopedic art museum
  • Designation: New York City Landmark (exterior, 1967; interior, 1977); National Historic Landmark (1986)

Architect: Richard Morris Hunt

Richard Morris Hunt (1827–1895) was the first American admitted to the architecture school of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and became one of the most influential American architects of the nineteenth century. His work ranged from grand Fifth Avenue mansions to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, and as a founding trustee of the Metropolitan Museum, he was a natural choice to lead its architectural transformation.

Hunt's master plan for the museum envisioned a monumental new front oriented towards Fifth Avenue rather than Central Park, reorienting the institution's public identity entirely. He died in 1895, before the entrance was completed, and the work was carried through by his son, Richard Howland Hunt, with consulting architect George B. Post, opening to the public in December 1902. The firm of McKim, Mead & White subsequently extended the museum's Fifth Avenue frontage to the north and south between 1906 and 1926, adapting Hunt's master plan for the wings that flank his original entrance today.

Architectural character: a Beaux-Arts stage on Fifth Avenue

The Fifth Avenue entrance is a masterclass in Beaux-Arts civic architecture: a broad flight of steps rising to three monumental arched openings, each framed by a pair of two-storey Corinthian columns, beneath an ornate classical cornice. The composition draws directly on Roman prototypes, translated into the confident, symmetrical grammar that Hunt had absorbed at the École des Beaux-Arts and brought to bear on some of the grandest private and civic commissions in Gilded Age America.

Behind the facade lies the Great Hall, a soaring, domed reception space that remains the museum's principal point of arrival, and the Grand Staircase beyond it, both designed as part of Hunt's original scheme. Because the museum grew by addition over more than a century, its full Fifth Avenue frontage today reads as a family of related Beaux-Arts facades — Hunt's central entrance flanked by the McKim, Mead & White wings — but it is Hunt's entrance itself, with its grand staircase and paired columns, that remains the museum's defining public image.

Our architectural sculpture focuses on this Fifth Avenue entrance — the staircase, arches, and colonnade of Hunt's 1902 design — rather than the full quarter-mile of the museum's later Fifth Avenue frontage.

Photograph by Simon Fieldhouse, licensed under CC A-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

History: a museum built by addition

The Met's origins lie in 1870, when a group of American civic leaders, collectors, and artists chartered a museum intended to bring great art to the American public. After several earlier homes, the museum opened at its present Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street site in 1880, in a High Victorian Gothic building by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould that was, even at the time, considered old-fashioned — one contemporary dubbed it a "mausoleum."

Within twenty years, the museum had embarked on the far grander architectural programme that defines it today. Richard Morris Hunt's Beaux-Arts master plan reoriented the museum towards Fifth Avenue, and his entrance facade, Great Hall, and Grand Staircase opened to widespread acclaim in December 1902 — one newspaper of the day calling it a neoclassical palace of art rivalling the great museums of Europe. McKim, Mead & White extended the Fifth Avenue frontage north and south over the following decades, and further additions continued throughout the twentieth century, including the American Wing of 1922–24 and, much later, modernist wings in glass and steel. The result is a museum whose architecture has grown, layer upon layer, for well over a century — with Hunt's 1902 entrance still standing as its most recognisable face. The building was designated a New York City Landmark in 1967 (exterior) and 1977 (interior), and a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

Cultural significance

Few museum entrances are as widely recognised as the Met's grand staircase and colonnade — the setting for the museum's famous annual Met Gala, the backdrop to countless films and photographs, and the place where millions of visitors each year begin their encounter with one of the world's great art collections. Hunt's design gave the Met a public face equal to its ambitions: a genuinely monumental civic architecture built to stand alongside the museums of Europe, at the moment when American institutions were first reaching for that scale of grandeur.

The model-maker's lens

  • Focus — the Fifth Avenue entrance itself: the grand staircase, three great arches, and paired Corinthian columns of Hunt's 1902 design, rather than the museum's full Fifth Avenue frontage.
  • Detail — the etched-metal window and door details pick out the fine classical mouldings of Hunt's stonework against the cast plaster.
  • How it reads at small scale — very well; the strong horizontal sweep of the staircase and the rhythm of the paired columns translate naturally into a low, wide object.
  • How to display — alongside our other Beaux-Arts and civic architecture models, or as a standalone centrepiece for anyone with a love of New York's museums.
  • How we made it — we created the CAD model from photographs, 3D printed the master pattern, created a single simple box mould, cast in pigmented white plaster and added etched metal detailing.

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Visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met stands at 1000 Fifth Avenue, facing Central Park on the Upper East Side, and anchors the northern end of the "Museum Mile." Hunt's entrance staircase and colonnade are best appreciated from across Fifth Avenue, where the full sweep of the composition can be taken in at once. The museum is open to the public most days of the week; current hours and admission details are available on the Met's own website.

Frequently asked questions about the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Who designed the Metropolitan Museum's Fifth Avenue entrance?

It was designed by Richard Morris Hunt, a founding trustee of the museum, and completed after his death by his son Richard Howland Hunt with consulting architect George B. Post, opening in December 1902.

When was the Metropolitan Museum of Art built?

The museum was founded in 1870 and opened at its present Fifth Avenue site in 1880. The famous Fifth Avenue entrance, Great Hall, and Grand Staircase were completed later, opening to the public in December 1902.

What architectural style is the Metropolitan Museum of Art?

The Fifth Avenue entrance is a landmark example of Beaux-Arts architecture, drawing on Roman classical prototypes. The wider museum complex, built up over more than a century of additions, spans several architectural styles.

Is the Metropolitan Museum of Art a protected landmark?

Yes. Its exterior was designated a New York City Landmark in 1967, its interior in 1977, and it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

Does the model show the whole museum building?

No. The Metropolitan Museum's Fifth Avenue frontage stretches nearly a quarter of a mile and has grown through additions over more than a century. Our model focuses on Hunt's original 1902 entrance — the grand staircase, arches, and colonnade that remain the museum's most recognisable feature.

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