The Architect’s Newspaper: Reopened Michael C. Rockefeller Wing raises ethical questions about decolonization at The Met

The Architect’s Newspaper takes a critical look at the reopened Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, set within the larger conversation about how universal museums hold and display works from Africa, Oceania, and the Ancient Americas.

The piece reads WHY’s intervention as quiet rather than dramatic — a recalibration of light, sequence, and breathing room around the art. The architecture choices, the magazine notes, are inseparable from the curatorial ones, and the wing’s reopening is a moment to weigh both.

Image: Bridgit Beyer

The renovation, designed by WHY Architecture with Beyer Blinder Belle and the Met’s design department, opened to the public on May 31, 2025.