Nader speaks to Sam Cochran on NADAAA’s ongoing renovations at the Met during a behind-the-scenes tour: “How can connections be made that overcome archeological penchants for divisions?” So asks Nader Tehrani, whose Boston-based firm was selected to renovate the 15,000 square-foot galleries for Ancient Near Eastern and Cypriot Art, slated to open in 2026. His design does just that, forging meaningful links among the cultures of this vast region. What had been a daisy chain of discrete rooms will be a continuous loop, with a toroid plan that eliminates walls and, with the addition of a ramp, improves accessibility. “The 19th century wanted to taxonomize everything,” Tehrani reflects. “History is never closed.” Vaulting, at turns rippling and broadly arching, will hint at chronological breaks and unify themes while nodding to ancient building technologies. Materials, too, break from neutral modernist tropes, with allusions to the lapis lazuli and bronze of artifacts. And four nonhierarchical entrances will extend dialogues to periods and places beyond the immediate galleries. “there are fluid connections from one space and one history to another.”

-Sam Cochran, Architectural Digest

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