Fogg Art Museum Addition | 32 Quincy Street | Cambridge

Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

This could have been a great building. It would have been much better as a stand-alone allowed to be it's own thing rather than a deferential addition to it's elder. As is, neither building benefits from this awkward grafting. Campbell doesn't like the granite wall but it adds something organic it wouldn't have otherwise.

Agree with Random the long windowless side is oppressive. There's a modest banner there now but graphics at the scale of what's done on the Gardner could make this come alive.

The overall tech look and materials are fine but this particular arrangement doesn't quite hit the mark.
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

Are UV coatings on exterior glazing not sufficient at filtering?
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

RandomWalk said:
Are UV coatings on exterior glazing not sufficient at filtering?
Click to expand...

You just don't want natural light coming in from side windows in a museum. It creates bad lighting conditions for viewing artwork. When applicable, museums are designed to bring natural light into galleries from above with either light shelves or skylights. See below.

Notice that in Foster's MFA addition, he used windows, but he put walls ("buffer walls") right in front of them creating window hallways of sorts (that you can walk in) in order to shield the galleries from getting any natural light. The Fogg doesn't offer the same massive square footage as the MFA addition to sacrifice space to extra walls in front of walls.

Example:
Kimbell Art Museum, Louis Kahn

1024px-Kimbell_Art_Museum_Fort_Worth_galleries_1.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimbel...Kimbell_Art_Museum_Fort_Worth_galleries_1.jpg
 
Last edited:
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

Piano did put that weird glass box on one side of the new Fogg with the exterior barn door wall. Perhaps another space like that on the long wall along Prescott St would at least break up the monotony.
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

04-CompassoDaVinci.jpg


^^^This is a daVinci by a window at the State Hermitage!! Not a problem, the window is north-facing. (The Italian Gallery overlooks the River Neva.)
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

Architizer article:

How Renzo Piano Does It, in His Own Words: A Review of the New Harvard Art Museums
Nov 17 2014 | Daniel Rauchwerger

Renzo Piano was in an ebullient mood the evening prior to the ceremonial preview of the newly expanded Harvard Art Museums (HAM). He was to discuss the project in a conversation titled “How Did You Do It, Mr. Piano?,” held at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and he appeared on stage wearing a white T-shirt with “Trust me, I’m an architect” emblazoned on it in red.

...

“Architecture needs time to prove itself,” Piano said of the relationship between his work and Corbusier’s — the second time Piano has the chance to build next to a modern master’s major work (counting the Kimbell by Louis Kahn). “It is a difficult game. In this case it was about the ramp, and the assurance of its continuity. Overall, the dialogue between the buildings is quite frank. Buildings, in any case, deserve time to be judged, to become part of the city, like a forest. It takes time. I think that what we’ve done is worthwhile. It makes Cambridge a nicer place to live in.”

http://architizer.com/blog/how-renzo-piano-does-it-in-his-own-words/
Click to expand...
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

stellarfun said:
^^^This is a daVinci by a window at the State Hermitage!! Not a problem, the window is north-facing. (The Italian Gallery overlooks the River Neva.)
Click to expand...
I was horrified that there were works by the Old Masters right next to wide-open windows when I toured the Vatican Museum. There was even sunlight shining right on a Vermeer!

Thankfully, Harvard takes good care of its collections.
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

The Italians are notoriously bad at keeping art safe from damage, of both the natural and unnatural variety.
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

elemenoh said:
I was horrified that there were works by the Old Masters right next to wide-open windows when I toured the Vatican Museum. There was even sunlight shining right on a Vermeer!

Thankfully, Harvard takes good care of its collections.
Click to expand...

The Vatican has no Vermeer paintings.
http://www.essentialvermeer.com/vermeer_painting_part_one.html#.VGqN5DTF9xV

You can take a Google Maps virtual tour of the Uffizi in Florence, and try to find the windows.

http://www.uffizi.org/halls/hall-15-of-leonardo/
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

I went to the member preview for this event on Wednesday night. Wow. I get the mixed reviews on architecture, but as an art museum it was world class. The collection is outstanding. Galleries and curation are amazing.
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

FRom the article
That left the rear of the site as the place for the modern addition, but neighbors along residential Prescott Street were concerned about height and mass.
Click to expand...
All the buildings on the block of Prescott opposite the museum from Broadway south are owned by Harvard. The building on the SE corner of Broadway and Prescott is also owned by Harvard. So the 'neighbors' are tenants, with no property interest.

84 Prescott, on the north side of Broadway, is a rental apartment building, not owned by Harvard.
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

it really is a shock, even around here, that cambridge historical commission mandated that the fogg building remain. they should have just torn it down and started over. maybe kept the piazza inside, but there's miles of red brick around here.... somewhat frustrating, since this would have been an ideal site, really, THE ideal site, in harvard for a world class, daring building.
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

Ok, so ... its not good enough to have a quiet world class building that mediates all sorts of difficult context? It has to be daring too?

I think harvard is full of quiet quality architecture which has served them well. There is no reason for them to drop a spaceship in their yard.

cca
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

i agree in principle, and i should defer judgment until i get to go inside and really see it now that it's finished. but i have to say i dont think anything goes very well with red brick - though i love the whole campus for its old, red brick buildings. but for once, given the ubiquity of the architecture, i would not have gone bananas if they just tore down the fogg and built something else. and that something could have been daring without necessarily being a spaceship.....
 
Re: Fogg Art Museum Addition

FK4 said:
i agree in principle, and i should defer judgment until i get to go inside and really see it now that it's finished. but i have to say i dont think anything goes very well with red brick - though i love the whole campus for its old, red brick buildings. but for once, given the ubiquity of the architecture, i would not have gone bananas if they just tore down the fogg and built something else. and that something could have been daring without necessarily being a spaceship.....
Click to expand...

The Carpenter Center (a spaceship) is one of the best pieces of avant garde architecture built (in its time) and has never been completely accepted for all its amazing architectural merit. Harvard was not going to do that again. We are in a time and place where thoughtful modernism that relates but does not reflect the context is better valued.

As far as Harvard yard is concerned. It is fascinating that we have this perception that Harvard Yard is a unified collection of red brick buildings. I would challenge you to spend an afternoon walking around the yard and seeing the architectural diversity that exists there. Yes, there is a lot of brick, but it is not at all uniform in its color, texture, or overall architectural style. Its a wonderful collection of diverse but related architecture.

Harvard is simply doing what has made Harvard what it is.

cca

Ps. Did you know that the filmmakers that made The Social Network shot the exterior campus shots NOT at Harvard but at Johns Hopkins. In the DVD commentary it was explained that in the dailies that they showed, people were very confused because in their mind Harvard is a uniformly Georgian red brick campus. This is not at all true so to better symbolize to the general public that the school was Harvard ... they shot somewhere else. Funny no?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top