McKim, Mead & White designed the building, listed as Neoclassical in the text and Beaux-Arts in the infobox. The west wing was formally opened on October 2, 1897. The design was four times as large as what was built from 1893 through 1927. The oldest portion, 193 by 71 feet (59 by 22 m), was about three percent of the plan.
The facade is 510 feet (160 m) wide and has 20 monolithic figures, each 12 feet (3.7 m) high, on the cornice. Daniel Chester French made the pediment sculptures and the figures of Brooklyn and Manhattan flanking the entrance. The plan called for 80 sculptures, but only 28 had been installed by 1928.
James Polshek's renovation, completed in April 2004, added a glass pavilion with four metal pylons and a semicircular plaza. The building totals 560,000 square feet (52,000 m²), and the collection has around 500,000 objects. The museum uses a suggested admission policy.
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