Frida Escobedo

Frida Escobedo (born 1979, Mexico City, Mexico) is a Mexican architect whose experimental, multidisciplinary approach to architectural design has earned her a global reputation and appointments to high-profile projects including the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion in London and a new wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She is the founder of Frida Escobedo Studio.

Early life and architecture degree

Born in Mexico City, Frida Escobedo was raised by her parents, who divorced when she was young but remained close. Her mother was a sociologist, and her father was a physician practicing in obstetrics and gynecology. Eventually her mother remarried and had two more daughters, Escobedo’s younger half-sisters: María Gómez de León, who became a poet, and Ana Gómez de León, a photographer. Although she was drawn to art as a young person, Escobedo was hesitant to become an artist, telling Vogue in 2023, “Art is about your feelings and your ideas.…It’s about yourself, and I found that a little intimidating.”

When she was about seven, Escobedo saw an architectural exhibition with her father that greatly impacted her: a show by Argentinian architect Emilio Ambasz. “He constructed the buildings with very pure geometries, and at the same time, integrated into the landscape. They were almost surreal scenarios with white walls and a staircase that seemed to go up to nothing,” Escobedo described to the online publication LATINNESS. “After that, I understood that architecture could indeed be something super-utopian, imaginary.” In 2003 she earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture and urbanism from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

Early architecture projects

In the years after graduating, Escobedo worked on renovations and houses for friends, and in 2006 she established her Mexico City architecture studio when she was 23 years old, having never worked for another architecture firm. “Of course there was very little money to develop the projects that I was trying to do,” Escobedo told The New York Times in 2025. “The idea of trying to do more with less was always present, and how to achieve that with simple materials and rather than depending on supersophisticated detailing or rich, complicated finishes. It was more about the big gesture.…How do you play with light and these other more simple means to achieve something that feels interesting and engaging?” As a young woman in architecture, Escobedo was often passed over for projects due to her age and gender. “It’s very challenging,” Escobedo said. “People don’t have the same level of trust in a young woman as, say, an older-age guy. So it’s difficult to get commissions.” Frida Escobedo Studio built its reputation through local competitions, winning projects including a renovation of Hotel Boca Chica (2008) in Acapulco, Mexico; El Eco Pavilion, a temporary installation at Museo Experimental El Eco (2010) in Mexico City; and an expansion of La Tallera (2010), the former home and studio of painter David Alfaro Siqueiros and now a museum and artists’ residence in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Master’s degree and projects from the 2010s

In 2012 Escobedo graduated with a master’s degree in art, design, and the public domain, a new program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She described her studies as “showing me that it was true: Architecture was not just about developing housing or doing retail or hospitality…It could be something else. You could be doing an installation, it could be doing furniture, it could be writing about it, it could be doing performance.” Indeed, throughout the 2010s Escobedo created a number of temporary installations, including the El Eco Pavilion in 2010. She arranged common concrete blocks in the courtyard to create various levels and seating for museum patrons. At the Lisbon Triennial in 2013 Escobedo designed a round pivoted stage for one of the city’s plazas, which worked similarly to a seesaw. As an audience climbed onto the stage to watch a performer, their weight would lower one end, and the other end would rise, lifting the performer. For the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2014, Escobedo created a series of portable stages that could be arranged for performances and seating in the institution’s courtyard, and for the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial, a tiered platform made from moveable modules that could be organized for lounging and gathering in the Chicago Cultural Center.

In addition to temporary installations, Escobedo also completed a number of housing and retail projects, including the Mar Tirreno residential complex (2018) in Mexico City and storefronts for the Australian luxury cosmetics brand Aesop in Miami, Florida (2014 and 2015); Chicago (2017); and New York City (2014 and 2018). Many of these projects emphasize one simple material arranged in a unique pattern, creating clean but striking spaces.

Breakthrough with the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion

In 2018 Escobedo was appointed to design the Serpentine Galleries’ annual temporary pavilion in London’s Kensington Gardens. At 38, she was the youngest architect to complete the project. She was also the first Mexican commissioned for the role. Escobedo’s design was influenced by both Mexican and British culture and architectural styles. It resembled an enclosed courtyard, a common feature of homes in Mexico, and was made from dark cement roof tiles made in England. It included a latticed Mexican celosia, or breeze wall, which allowed some visibility into the park. The feature is one of Escobedo’s hallmarks, and she described it to Vogue, “It’s not about transparency, where you see everything right away. Porosity allows mystery. There are other layers, moments of invitation, moments of slight distance, moments of engaging you or forcing you to become more focused.” The building’s axis pointed toward the Prime Meridian, the longitudinal line used to indicate 0° since 1851. The Serpentine’s artistic director, Hans Ulrich Obrist, described the work to The New York Times, saying that Escobedo “creates sculptures which are only complete when they are occupied.”

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In 2019 the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) named Escobedo an International Fellow, and Domus, a magazine focused on architecture, listed her studio as one of the world’s “100+ Best Architecture Firms.” Two years later she received the commission to helm the redevelopment of the National Black Theater, a historically Black art complex in Harlem, New York City. It was one of her first major projects in the United States.

Metropolitan Museum

All of these achievements seemingly led up to her largest project to date: the new wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She was selected in 2022, becoming the first woman to design a wing for the institution. Her plan for the Oscar L. Tang and H.M. Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing, which will house the museum’s growing collection of modern and contemporary art, was released to the public in 2024. “This vision for the Tang Wing builds upon the Museum’s material history,” Escobedo told The Architect’s Newspaper. “However, it is not a nostalgic continuation of the past but rather a search for layers of meaning that offer new perspectives on the present—and, by extension, the future.” The new wing will comprise five stories and 126,000 square feet (11,700 square meters) of space and will offer guests access from the museum to the city and neighboring Central Park, as well as a connection to the rest of the museum. The limestone facade is—as in Escobedo’s previous designs such as the Serpentine Pavilion—intended to evoke a celosia. With a budget of about $550 million, the new wing is expected to open in 2030.

Awards and other projects

Escobedo has held positions teaching architecture at Columbia University, Harvard University, and Yale University. In addition to her RIBA honor, she has also received awards that include the Architectural League of New York’s Young Architects Forum Award (2009) and the Architectural Review Emerging Architecture Award (2016), among others.