Every year, millions of visitors pass through the doors of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, each drawn to a different work of art, a different relic, a different masterpiece. And the building itself is just as storied as the items inside.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 with the mission of bringing art, culture, and education to the American public. And that it did. In the over 150 years since, the Met has steadily grown into one of the world’s most influential museums. Coming in at 2.2 million square feet, the expansive art institution houses centuries and centuries of global creativity, from impressionist paintings to Bronze Age sculptures. Beyond the collections, the museum has also become a defining pillar of New York City’s identity. It’s a place where history, innovation, and artistry converge. And converge they do at the Met Gala, an annual fundraiser that transforms the museum into a spectacle of style. The exclusive gala raises funds for the Costume Institute and reaffirms the Met’s enduring impact on the arts–both past and present.
Below, a list of need-to-knows ahead of the Met Gala happening May 4th.
Where is the Met?
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, right on the border of Central Park. Its address is 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028.
Who owns the Met?
The museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and is privately operated by a corporation of just under 1,000 benefactors who have an endowment of over $2 billion. They also raise more than $100 million every year in donations, as well as admission fees from the 5 million visitors the museum admits annually.
Who founded the Met?
The idea to build the Metropolitan Museum of Art dates back to 1866, when a group of Americans in Paris decided to create a “national institution and gallery of art” that would bring art and art education to the American people. A lawyer by the name of John Jay originally proposed the museum and was the one who really brought the idea to fruition.
Upon returning to the United States from France, Jay got straight to work with the help of the Union League Club in New York to rally civic leaders, businessmen, artists, art collectors, and philanthropists. Just three years later, on April 13, 1870, The Metropolitan Museum of Art was incorporated and opened to the public. They wouldn’t acquire their first object, a Roman sarcophagus, until November of that same year.
Who designed the Met?
The museum is a harmonious jigsaw puzzle of various buildings and architectural styles. Architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould designed the initial Ruskinian Gothic structure, which is still visible in the Robert Lehman Wing.
As the Met’s art collection grew, so did the structure. We have founding museum trustee and famed architect Richard Morris Hunt to thank for the Beaux-Arts Fifth Avenue facade and Great Hall we all know and love. This new addition opened to the public in 1902 and was considered “the only public building in recent years which approaches in dignity and grandeur the museums of the old world” by the Evening Post.
Credit: architecturaldigest
