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Founded in 1870
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded on 13 April 1870 and first opened to the public on 20 February 1872, at 681 Fifth Avenue. After an agreement with the city, it was granted land on the edge of Central Park and moved into its present building in 1880. That first section, designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, was built of red brick and stone.
A façade on Fifth Avenue
Richard Morris Hunt and his son Richard Howland Hunt designed the Beaux-Arts Fifth Avenue façade, the Great Hall and the Grand Stairway around the turn of the 20th century. McKim, Mead & White completed the wings along Fifth Avenue in 1910, and the firm of Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo later added the glass sides and rear. The building became a National Historic Landmark in 1986.
Five thousand years of art
Today the museum holds around 1.5 million works. Among them is the Temple of Dendur, built in Roman Egypt and given to the United States in 1965, which opened at The Met in its own glass-walled wing in 1978. A second location, The Met Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park, was completed in 1938 and presents medieval European art and architecture.
