Posted on July 5, 2012

Park Avenue Armory Receives $15 Million From Thompson Family Foundation to Revitalize Herter Brothers Room

The Park Avenue Armory in New York City has announced a $15 million gift from the Thompson Family Foundation to revitalize and restore its Board of Officers Room, which is part of a $200 million, multiyear project to transform the landmark building, including the 55,000-square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall, into a cultural facility and institution.

The gift, which boosts to $50 million the total amount given by Angela Thompson and the family of founding Park Avenue Armory chair Wade F.B. Thompson, will support the restoration and renovation of one of the few remaining Herter Brothers interiors in New York City; the Herters were prominent Gilded Age furniture makers and interior decorators. Renovation of the Board of Officers Room is expected to be completed in the fall of 2013 and will serve as a state-of-the-art performance space for recitals and other events.

"When we took over the building [in December 2006], the Board of Officers Room, once one of the most gorgeous and important Herter Brothers rooms in the country, was being used as a coat check room for art fairs," said Park Avenue Armory president and executive producer Rebecca Robertson. "[Swiss architecture firm] Herzog & de Meuron have meticulously studied the room, which has naturally beautiful acoustics, and their re-imagining will reinstate it to its former glory and reanimate it as a special room for intimate recitals and cutting-edge art exhibitions."