The Metropolitan Museum of Art has opened its new Condé M. Nast Galleries, a 12,000-square-foot exhibition space designed by Brooklyn-based architecture firm Peterson Rich Office (PRO). The galleries, which debuted with the Costume Institute's exhibition "Costume Art," transform a former interior courtyard and gift shop into five sequential rooms, including named spaces for Thom Browne, Michael Kors, and Lance LePere. PRO also designed the exhibition itself, which pairs 200 garments and accessories with 200 artworks from the Met's collection, creating a dialogue between fashion and fine art.
The new galleries mark a significant institutional shift for the Met, as they are three times larger than the Costume Institute's previous home and are centrally located off the Great Hall, reinforcing the museum's assertion that fashion is art. The design by Miriam Peterson and Nathan Rich establishes a permanent architectural language within a museum that has undergone 21 previous expansions, while accommodating annually rotating content. Head Curator Andrew Bolton emphasized that the exhibition encourages visitors to consider art in the context of fashion, rather than the reverse, signaling a curatorial reorientation in how the museum presents costume and design.