Metropolitan Museum

Inspired by one of New York's great Beaux-Arts set-pieces, this architectural object interprets the Fifth Avenue entranceof the Metropolitan Museum of Art — Richard Morris Hunt's 1902 staircase and colonnade — as a refined, sculptural form.

Rather than the museum's full quarter-mile Fifth Avenue frontage, this piece focuses on Hunt's original entrance: the grand staircase, three great arches, and paired Corinthian columns that remain the Met's most recognisable feature.

Read the full Metropolitan Museum architecture guide

A Beaux-Arts entrance, interpreted as an object

Hunt's Fifth Avenue entrance concentrates the museum's Beaux-Arts identity into a single, monumental composition: a broad staircase, three arched openings, and two-storey pairs of Corinthian columns beneath an ornate classical cornice. Rather than attempting the museum's sprawling later wings, this object isolates Hunt's original entrance so its detailing and proportion can be appreciated on their own terms.

This architectural model focuses on the building's defining characteristics:

• the broad, horizontal sweep of the grand staircase
• the rhythm of the paired Corinthian columns and triple arches
• the fine classical mouldings, rendered in etched metal detailing

By reducing the building to its entrance alone, the object allows the proportion and detail of Hunt's Beaux-Arts design to be appreciated up close, independently of the museum's much larger scale.

Why the Met's entrance works as an architectural model

The entrance translates especially well into object form because it is a self-contained, symmetrical composition, built on the same classical proportions Hunt trained in at the École des Beaux-Arts, with a horizontal rhythm — staircase, colonnade, cornice — that reads clearly at small scale. These characteristics remain powerful when isolated from the wings that flank it today. The object feels both architectural and sculptural — an intimate counterpart to one of the most photographed entrances in New York.

Craft, materials, and finish

Each Metropolitan Museum object is crafted with an emphasis on material honesty and precision. The plaster finish picks out the fluting of the Corinthian columns and the crisp lines of Hunt's classical stonework, while the etched metal detailing renders the fine mouldings of the original entrance against the smooth cast form. The result is an object that sits comfortably within architectural interiors and design studios, on bookshelves and workspaces, and in collections focused on Beaux-Arts or civic architecture. It is equally suited to architects, designers, and anyone with a personal connection to the Met.

A piece of New York City history

The Met's Fifth Avenue entrance has served as the public face of one of the world's great museums since 1902, the setting for the annual Met Gala and countless visitors' first encounter with the museum's collection. It is a designated New York City Landmark and a National Historic Landmark. As an object, this piece offers a way to engage with that history in tactile, physical form, focused on the entrance millions of visitors have climbed since the turn of the twentieth century.

Product details

• Subject: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue entrance, Manhattan, New York
• Architectural style: Beaux-Arts
• Original completion: 1902
• Architect: Richard Morris Hunt
• Designed and made by: Chisel & Mouse

Learn more about the Metropolitan Museum of Art

For a detailed exploration of the building's architecture, history, and cultural legacy, see our in-depth guide:

Metropolitan Museum of Art Architecture: Richard Morris Hunt and the Grand Entrance on Fifth Avenue