Over the weekend, the brand-new Whitney Museum of American Art opened its doors in NYC's Meatpacking District for what was, by all accounts, a hugely successful debut: tickets were sold out days in advance, and Instagram was filled with photos of the museum's new, light-filled home at the base of The High Line. But while the institution's new Renzo Piano-designed building is garnering plenty of attention, Whitney fans may be wondering what's going on with the museum's old home on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Wonder no more: The Metropolitan Museum of Art signed an eight-year-lease on the Whitney's old home, known as the Breuer Building (after its architect, Marcel Breuer), and will open a new contemporary-art–focused offshoot, The Met Breuer, in 2016. The new museum will open on March 10 with "Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible," an exhibit that explores artists' work in various states of completion (or lack thereof), and "Nasreen Mohamedi," a retrospective devoted to the Indian modern artist. (Future exhibits will showcase the work of pioneering photographer Diane Arbus and Birmingham artist Kerry James Marshall, whose paintings will be on view.) The museum has also tapped Vijay Iyer to be its first artist-in-residence, giving the MacArthur Genius Grant winner free rein to curate a series of live performances throughout the building.

Photograph by Ed Lederman

Considering the size of the Metropolitan Museum of Art—its Fifth Avenue building is spread out over about 2 million square feet—it might seem strange that the museum would be in the market for more space. But there's a precedent for this: The Met also runs The Cloisters, an offshoot devoted to the art of Medieval Europe, in Manhattan's Fort Tryon Park. That satellite location opened in 1938 thanks to an endowment from John D. Rockefeller Jr., who also donated pieces from his collection to the institution. With the Whitney garnering so much attention, and contemporary-focused institutions like The New Museum and MoMA PS1 attracting more visitors, it makes sense that the Met would stake its own claim in the new-art space. And unlike the much-missed American Folk Art Museum building—which was torn down to make way for the Museum of Modern Art's expansion—the Breuer Building will remain in place, an unlikely Brutalist treasure amid the stately manors of the Upper East Side.