Fogg Art Museum Addition | 32 Quincy Street | Cambridge

[czsz]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Of all the buildings Harvard could destroy...

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

From the description, it would seem they will only save the front of the Fogg.

All beyond the front low-rise (barely seen in the photo below) goes:

If a few hundred million = $300-400 million, how many sq ft does that buy? The MFA is getting 133,000 sq ft for $500 million, but I don't think all of the $500 million is for construction.

 

[itchy]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Of all the buildings Harvard could destroy...

Of all the barren land in N. Allston (aka the Twilight Zone) that Harvard could have built on...

Wait, make that wanted to build on... tried to build on...

 

[czsz]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

they will only save the front of the Fogg

Surely they're not getting rid of the courtyard?

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Surely they're not getting rid of the courtyard?

I assume all will be revealed next month. I suspect that if some parts of the museum are demolished, they will be rebuilt as before, or quite similar. If the courtyard was a donor's gift, presumably given in perpetuity, there may be some obligation to honor and be faithful to the intent of the donor.

 

[kz1000ps]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Fogg, with Sackler in the background

Otto Hall

 

[Spatch]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Well, it's nice that they're saving the original Fogg building and the courtyard, but Otto Hall is a brilliant place for the German expressionist and Bauhaus stuff. I'll miss it. I guess I'll have to withhold judgement on Piano's plans until I see something that doesn't look like a kindergartener's interpretation of Venn diagrams.

 

[unterbau]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

There's some preliminary renderings in the Globe today, if someone has a scanner. The article pretty much says that the final product won't look much like what we're shown anyways...

 

[czsz]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

...can't tell much from this. Accompanying article:

Harvard hints at museum plans in artful manner
By Geoff Edgers

Back in 1999, when Harvard proposed building a pair of new art museums on the Charles River, the Cambridge neighbors were less than enthusiastic. One resident reacted by putting a sign on his home reading "Stop Harvard Museums."

Then in 2006, the university announced plans to build an art museum in Allston. But neighbors complained about its size and the amount of space accessible to the public.

This time around, Harvard is being careful. No glitzy press conferences or snazzy videos showing virtual tours - typical when museums announce building plans. Instead, Harvard Art Museum leaders have quietly held open houses and attended community meetings to make sure Cambridge residents approve of their latest multiyear project: reshaping the Quincy Street quarters that currently house the Fogg Art Museum and Busch-Reisinger Museum.

The plan is the focus of an exhibition that opens at the Fogg on Sunday, "Renzo Piano's Art Museum for Harvard." The show will offer a peek at the architect's sketches for the new museum complex, which call for knocking down the existing Busch-Reisinger and renovating the Fogg. All three of Harvard's museums - the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler Museum - will ultimately be housed within one complex. (The Sackler is now across the street on Broadway in a building that will be repurposed.)

When the exhibit closes on June 30, so will the Fogg - until about 2013. The Harvard Art Museum's sole public presence will be a revolving display of works at the Sackler.

"We want to give people an idea of what's happening on the site," said Harvard Art Museum director Tom Lentz. "Because about six weeks later, we close this building."

In a recent interview, Lentz said he wasn't yet ready to reveal much information about the project. He said that he could not offer a cost estimate and that it was too soon to know the exact square footage of the future museum complex. But he did confirm that Harvard has taken a deliberate approach in unveiling the project's design in the wake of negative responses to previous plans.

"We have a complex political landscape to navigate through," said Lentz. "In some ways, there's the price of doing business at Harvard."

Lentz also showed off some drawings that will be on display in the exhibition. They depict a structure whose roofline slopes upward behind the Fogg's Quincy Street facade. The Prescott Street side of the complex, which houses the Busch-Reisinger, has Piano's distinctively transparent look, with much of the first floor made of glass. But that may change, Lentz says.

Piano's schematic designs block out rough spaces for the project but do not detail the final look of the complex. For example, it is still unclear what material will be used on the exterior walls of the new Busch-Reisinger, according to Lentz. It is likely the ground floor of glass shown in Piano's drawing will be scaled back so more walls can be used for hanging art.

"At this point, we're not quite clear what the building's going to look like," said Lentz. "It's being designed from the inside out. All we know is what's most important to us - how the building functions."

The exterior facade of the Fogg won't change. It can't, because the building is a landmark, said Lentz. The Busch-Reisinger, built in 1991, will be ripped down. So will a series of other structures - the Fine Arts Library and Naumberg Wing - added to the complex in the years after the Fogg opened in 1927. The new frontage will be farther back from Prescott Street than the current building, allowing for a more welcoming entrance, Lentz said. The museum also plans to extend a ramp that Le Corbusier designed to swing from the neighboring Carpenter Center to the new Prescott Street entrance.

The inside of the museums will also change dramatically. Every system - electrical, plumbing, air conditioning, and heating - will be upgraded. Study centers will be stacked on the top sections of the building, offering students and other visitors space to closely examine artworks. The central courtyard of the Fogg will remain.

Harvard's strategy for handling relations with residents on this project makes sense when considered in the context of its failed plan to build two museums along the Charles River. Some Cambridge neighbors objected to the plan, and Harvard eventually dropped it. A plan to build another museum in Allston largely for modern and contemporary art is currently on hold.

"The museum is in a community, so I think we want to make sure they like what's going to be done with the museum and they have a chance to have some input," said Chris Gordon, chief operating officer of Harvard's Allston Development Group, which is overseeing the university's expansion into Allston and has been working with Harvard Art Museum on its project there.

Harvard is trying to make sure it shares information about the Quincy Street project with residents early, allowing them plenty of time to voice objections. Last month more than 600 neighbors were invited to a presentation and discussion at the Fogg, and presentations have been made to the Cambridge Historical Commission and Planning Board. On Saturday and Sunday, the museum will host an open house to show off the Piano design. The museum has sent out 30,000 cards inviting neighbors.

"They've done a very very good job of informing the neighbors as to what is going on, and what the timeline is," said Joan Pickett, a member of the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Association. "Their outreach and their information have been very strong."

Pickett said she considers the project "non-controversial."

"They're keeping it within the scope of the neighborhood buildings, in terms of heights," she said. "They're not proposing anything controversial, as I think they were the last time. They're not proposing anything that really seems at this point to impinge on the character of the neighborhood. I haven't heard anything from any of the abutters that they're concerned, and that is usually a good sign."

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Interesting that they are going to put all three museums in the Fogg/Busch land footprint, and eventually convert Sackler (which is across the street) into some other use. Given that Fogg & Busch already pretty much occupy the entirety of footprint, and the front facade stays as is, IMO that means digging, and having perhaps one or two floors of galleries below grade.

And perhaps the best news of all is the courtyard will remain, almost surely after being deconstructed and then rebuilt.

Hopefully, more sketches will be released later in the week.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

From the Digital Edition of the Chronicles of Higher Education:

Harvard U. Begins Museum Renovations?With No Plan for Stirling's Sackler Building

Harvard University?s plan to close its main art-museum building for a five-year renovation by the architect Renzo Piano is sure to fever armchair architecture critics. Fans of the existing Fogg Museum, with its Georgian facade and columned courtyard, will want to have their say, as will people eager to praise or disparage Mr. Piano?s alterations?which The Boston Globe says will be unveiled Sunday. Mr. Piano?s work has come under fire lately because he has developed?at least according to Bloomberg?s architecture writer, James S. Russell?a habit of recycling his early masterpieces.

(Harvard U. image)

What Harvard?s plan downplays, though, is the uncertain fate of the wonderful 1985 building that currently houses the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, which has collections of ancient, Islamic, Asian, and Indian art. The building, a masterpiece of the Postmodern movement, was designed by the British architect James Stirling, who died in 1992.

Its exterior is subdued, to say the least?alternating bands of tan and dark-gray brick decorate a long wall overlooking Quincy Street, and bold blocks create a cyclopean window over the entrance, on Broadway. The doorway itself takes its shape from ancient architectural forms.

What makes the Sackler building so memorable, though, is a spectacular stairway that organizes the interior for visitors, carrying them down from the ancient-art galleries on the third floor and the Asian galleries on the second floor to the entrance at street level. Pierced by interior windows and interrupted by landings, it also serves as the building?s main aesthetic statement and chief pleasure?it?s the big wow. A picture wouldn?t begin to do it justice?it?s architecture that has to be experienced to be appreciated.

The columns on either side of the Sackler building?s doorway were originally intended to hold up a bridge that was to connect the Sackler to the main museum complex on Quincy Street. There the Fogg is housed in a 1925 building by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott, and the Busch-Reisinger occupies an adjoining structure. But the bridge plan is long since forgotten.

When the Fogg and the Busch-Reisinger close this summer, the Sackler building will be converted to a home for changing exhibitions of items from all of the university?s art collections. It will be interesting to see how creatively the building serves different exhibitions over the next five years.

But after the Piano renovation is complete, the Sackler?s collections will be housed in the main complex. What Harvard says about Stirling?s delightful building is not exactly encouraging: ?The long-term use of the building at 485 Broadway is currently under review by the University.? That could mean anything?either ?Two deans are fighting over who gets this gem? or ?We need that lot for something else.? With any kind of luck, it will be the former.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif][SIZE=-2] Lawrence Biemiller | Tuesday May 13, 2008 [/SIZE][/FONT]

http://chronicle.com/blogs/architec...nswith-no-plan-for-stirlings-sackler-building
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif][SIZE=-2][/SIZE][/FONT]

 

[unterbau]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Sure, Stirling is one of the most important architects of the postmodernist movement, but calling the Sackler a 'masterpiece' is pretty silly. At most it's an elegant building that will forever be unfinished...

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Can't really find a larger image file.

Acclaimed architect Renzo Piano to design major Fogg renovation

By Colleen Walsh
Harvard News Office
There are many reasons to love the Harvard Art Museum. For one, an extensive collection of art transports you from ancient times into the present. Then there is the signature design of the Fogg Museum building at 32 Quincy St., with its evocative courtyard, modeled after the 16th century facade of a home in Montepulciano, Italy.


But love is about to take a turn ? for the better. Plans for a major overhaul of the 32 Quincy St. facility are under way. The work ? starting in 2009 ? will keep the historic structure intact. But extra gallery space will mean more works of art will be on display. (Right now, viewers at any one time see less than 1 percent of the collection, Harvard Art Museum officials said.)

....

Internationally acclaimed architect Renzo Piano has been tapped for the new design. The Italian?s body of work is extensive and includes everything from churches to soccer stadiums. One of his most recognizable projects is the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris. Piano is also responsible for the recent expansion of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City, where the creative design, which includes a bright, airy atrium full of glass, sunlight, and open space, deftly melds the old and the new.


?He knows a great deal about art and is highly sensitive to historic buildings despite the fact that he is a contemporary architect,? said Lentz of Piano. ?He comes from a long line of builders, and he is deeply sensitive to and interested in building and materials and how things fit together.?


Piano?s design includes an expansive new entrance on the Prescott Street side of the facility, one set further back, that will open up the sidewalk and streetscape and bring the sloping Le Corbusier ramp, part of the adjacent Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, more closely into alignment with the art museum, noted Lentz.


The process will take about five years to complete, a duration driven in large part by the time needed to carefully package and relocate the vast collection to an off-site storage facility while the construction work is done. The involved process will then need to be repeated to reinstall the work in its new home.

The Fogg was originally located in Hunt Hall, built in 1895. Its current building at 32 Quincy St. opened in 1927. Over the years various additions have been made to the structure, including the Fine Arts Library, the Naumberg Wing, and Werner Otto Hall, the home of the Busch-Reisinger, dedicated in 1991.


But the variety of additions has meant a network of competing infrastructures, building systems that have grown outdated, and a loss of functional space. The biggest concern for museum officials is the lack of climate control systems for most of the current galleries, a problem that will be remedied with the new complex. Anything that is not original to the 1927 building will be razed to make way for the new addition along Prescott Street. The Sackler, built in 1985, and the Busch-Reisinger will each relocate to gallery space within the new addition that will be seamlessly integrated into the existing Fogg structure.

.....
On May 18, many members of the community had an opportunity to see a new exhibit of the plans for the museum, unveiled in the Fogg?s Straus Gallery. The exhibit, ?Renzo Piano?s Art Museum for Harvard,? will be on display until the museum closes its doors. The exhibit coincided with the museum?s community open house weekend.


In the bright courtyard children made decorative masks, while in the adjacent gallery, neighbors and curious visitors from near and far carefully examined Piano?s sketches and models.


?It looks good to me,? said Virginia Popper ?76 of Cambridge. ?I think they have done a good job of creating something with the amount of space they have.?

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2008/05.22/13-museum.html

 

[itchy]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Funny, Piano's a guy who's sometimes criticized because his buildings all look the same. Then, when his Meatpacking District Whitney Museum design was revealed, many said he'd done something new and different. To me, the (very preliminary) sketch looks a lot like his Fogg Museum design...

http://gothamist.com/2008/05/03/the_whitney.php

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Funny, Piano's a guy who's sometimes criticized because his buildings all look the same. Then, when his Meatpacking District Whitney Museum design was revealed, many said he'd done something new and different. To me, the (very preliminary) sketch looks a lot like his Fogg Museum design...

http://gothamist.com/2008/05/03/the_whitney.php

Itchy, it does. I hope somebody can wander into the Fogg before it closes on June 30th and describe in greater detail the sketches and early renderings on exhibit.

Meatpacking looks to have a lot of glass. Apparently, Piano was proposing the same for the Fogg, but Harvard said 'No', explaining you can't hand paintings on a glass curtain wall. So, given the limits of the Fogg footprint and space, the renovated Fogg will have a more solid exterior.

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

I think we can be sure there will be no moving room elevator @ the Fogg.

Lest you think big-name architects are infallible, gaze upon the elevator inside the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, Renzo Piano's travertine-clad addition to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Piano's big move harks back to his Pompidou Center in Paris: at the Broad he moved nearly all the circulation systems outside the three-story box, which contains 60,000 square feet of exhibit space. You enter via an open-air escalator that takes a full minute to transport you to the third floor. Inside, you're supposed to visit lower-floor galleries via a glass elevator that holds 30 people and is likened by Piano to a "moving room."

"It's the materialization of the idea of levitation," the ever-quotable Piano purred in a pre-opening interview about the elevator. "You just push a button."

But when the museum opened in February, the lift would stall if passengers weren't distributed evenly inside. After tinkering and tests, it was shut down in April while a new piston was ordered. Levitation 2.0 should be ready to go this week, but when I visited it was taped off like a crime scene - forcing museumgoers into a small service elevator.

For the record, Piano also designed the California Academy of Science's new home in Golden Gate Park, which opens in September. Yes, it has stairs.

John King writing today in the San Francisco Chronicle.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/03/DDNG110MF2.DTL

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Campbell plays CSI detective. An interesting piece.

Falling down

As it faces demolition, Harvard's Otto Hall provides an object lesson in the perils of museum design

By Robert Campbell, Globe Correspondent | June 29, 2008

You can think of it as a medical detective story, except that the patient is a building, not a person.

It's a building that broke out with a skin disease that, at first, nobody was able to diagnose.

The building is called Werner Otto Hall. It's a small building, attached to the rear of Harvard University's famous Fogg Art Museum. Otto Hall houses Harvard's Busch Reisinger Museum, a collection of Germanic art mostly of the 20th century.

Indoors, it's a delightful set of galleries. Outside, it's a rotting mess.
Otto Hall opened in 1991. Today, only 17 years later, its exterior walls have deteriorated so badly that Harvard says the only way to repair them would be to take them off and start over.

Yet this disaster was created by the best and the brightest. The client was Harvard, or more specifically the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The architect was Charles Gwathmey of the firm Gwathmey Siegel, known for - among other buildings - his superb 1992 addition to another museum, the Guggenheim in New York.

The general contractor was Walsh Brothers, a Boston firm now in its fourth generation that has long been regarded as one of the best in the region.

Walsh Brothers built the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge and much of Massachusetts General Hospital.

Otto was much praised, by this column among others, when Otto Hall opened in 1991. From outside, it was a clean example of modernism, bold but not so bold as to upstage the more celebrated architecture of Le Corbusier's Carpenter Center next door. Inside, it offered a set of galleries that intertwined with one another in unexpected ways.

That's why it's hard to believe that today the whole building - not just the walls, the whole thing - is slated to be completely demolished and removed.

Tomorrow the Fogg will close, and eventually new construction will engulf Otto's former site. The new work will be part of a major addition to the Fogg designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Italian architect Renzo Piano, due to open in 2013.

Harvard would like to direct your attention away from Otto's sick walls by claiming that the building just didn't fit in with the plans for the new, larger museum, so it had to go anyway. But Harvard also admits, when pressed, that Otto's exterior was incurable.

So what happened? What's the diagnosis?

To put it simply, the guys who worried about the museum's art were not the guys who worried about the weather. We'll call them the art guys and the weather guys.

The art guys, applying a conventional standard, decided that Otto's interior should be kept at a temperature of 70 degrees, with 50 percent humidity. Those numbers would be best, they believed, for the health of the artworks.

Not only that, but the curators asked that the interior be pressurized, like the fuselage of an airplane. They didn't want cold, dry Cambridge winter air slipping in and damaging the precious artworks. The museum owned
world-class works by such artists as Joseph Beuys and Max Beckmann - the self-portrait of Beckmann in a tuxedo is one of Harvard's unforgettable treasures - and also housed frequent touring exhibitions.

If there were going to be any air leaks through the exterior walls, the curators wanted to be sure the air would leak out of the building, not into it.

It's important to understand that this kind of sophisticated climate control was still fairly new at the time Otto was designed. Art curators were making demands that neither the world of architects nor the world of engineers and contractors had quite caught up with.

OK, that's the art guys. The weather guys - the architect, his engineering consultants, and the builder - created pretty much the kind of exterior they'd always built. The primary purpose was not to nurture the art but to keep out the weather. They built what is called a cavity wall. A cavity wall is like a sandwich. There's an outer layer of one material, to keep out the rain, then an empty layer of air, then an inner layer of some other material. Somewhere in the sandwich - the position can vary - there's also a layer of insulation, plus a sheet of something called a vapor barrier.

In the case of Otto, the exterior was finished in porcelain enamel panels, limestone panels, and glass windows. The interior was finished in ordinary drywall.

Now let's focus on the vapor barrier. This is a thin sheet of some kind of pliable fabric, usually plastic. Despite the name, its purpose is not to keep moisture out of the building but exactly the opposite. The vapor barrier is supposed to keep moist indoor air from leaking into the cavity wall.

Why would that be harmful? Because when it's cold outside, as it is in a Cambridge winter, the cavity will be cold, too, and any moist air leaking into it will condense into water, or perhaps even freeze into ice. The effect is like that of water condensing on a cold highball glass on a humid summer afternoon. Eventually, the water begins to damage the insides of the walls, creating rust and rot. At Otto there were times when the walls were soaked through.

Otto, remember, had a pressurized interior. Jim Collins, a Boston architect who is working with Piano on the new museum, puts the situation eloquently. "You've got an engine pumping moist air into the wall," he says. If the vapor barrier were perfect, it would stop the moisture. But in building construction, few things are perfect.

Architect Gwathmey says his wall design was just fine. In a recent interview from his New York office, he suggested other possibilities. "Somebody must have cut holes in the vapor barrier after it was installed," says Gwathmey. "Maybe a subcontractor installing plumbing or telephone connections."

Vapor barriers do, in fact, get punctured. Andy Sebor is a Connecticut engineer who is a recognized national expert in this field. He says failures of this kind are common in art museums of Otto's vintage. He notes that at the Davis Museum at Wellesley, a building by another Pritzker-winning architect, Rafael Moneo, the curators themselves caused problems. They ruptured the vapor barrier by drilling holes to hang artworks.

"You have to keep the vapor barrier away from the owner's drill bit," says Sebor wryly.

Sebor says that both construction methods and curatorial demands were changing in the years leading up to the Otto. "We engineers let architects and museum people go off on their own," he says. "There was a lot of wishful thinking." He notes many oddities, such as the fact that at architect Louis Kahn's gallery at Yale, heating elements were installed in the wall cavity, keeping it dry in winter. Kahn thus solved a problem he may not have known existed. Architects today, says Sebor, are more sophisticated.

There are a couple of other lessons to be learned from Ottne is that long-term institutions like Harvard should build durably. They're short-sighted when they indulge in the cost-cutting that's common in the commercial world. At Otto, the exterior limestone and metal panels were connected to the framing structure by what are called "ties," small metal connectors.Otto's ties were made of galvanized steel, a material that eventually rusts when subjected to moisture, as it was at Otto. They should have been stainless steel.

Another lesson, perhaps, is that architects should be more wary of new ways of building. In Boston we've seen two other costly cases of architectural skin disease, the failure of windows at the Hancock Tower and of granite panels at 28 State St., the former Bank of New England - both of which were designed by noted architects. And recently the problems of the Stata Center at MIT, by Pritzker winner Frank Gehry, have been in the news.

Otto's problems were never fixed. Nothing worked quite right. The interior never made it up to the desired 50 percent humidity because of the leakage. Even the windows didn't work. They lacked what are called thermal breaks, meaning they, too, could become sources of condensation.

Harvard sued the architect and the contractor in 1996.As usual in such legal matters, neither side will talk for the record, but word on the street is that the parties split the cost of repairs - repairs that proved, in the end, not to make any difference.

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2008/06/29/falling_down/

 

[stellarfun]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

Excerpted from the Harvard Crimson:

Where Art Thou, Fogg?
Sketchy plans for the future of Harvard's art collection

Published On 9/25/2008 8:12:14 PM
By ANJALI MOTGI
Crimson Staff Writer

....
Since June 30, the Fogg Museum?the oldest of the Harvard Art Museums system?has been on ?lock-down? for the purported purpose of readying the museum for its long-discussed renovations. For security reasons, no visitors?whether members of the student body, the public, or, in some cases, the History of Art and Architecture department?can enter the building. ....

This summer, the staff began the long, involved process of preparing the objects in the museum for transport to the off-site location where they?ll be stored during renovations. ?It?s safe to say that it?s a very well-orchestrated and very complex project,? says Daron J. Manoogian, the Harvard Art Museums? spokesman.

The Fogg has over 260,000 works in its collection, though this number includes every ancient coin and paper drawing. Still, it?s easy to understand why the sheer number of objects to be moved presents a logistical challenge to the renovators. Some of the artwork requires many layers of special packaging to ensure their safety during the move, and most are placed in crates before they are transported.

?It is a very daunting task,? Manoogian says. ?It?s a lot of work but it?s something that they?ve been preparing for several months, if not years.?

For security reasons, the museum staff cannot discuss when specific objects will be moved, nor can they disclose the location of the new off-site facility where they will be stored during construction. The facility will include office space for the museum staff and will house the art collections of all three museums?Fogg, Sackler, and Busch-Reisinger?but will not be open to the public. This facility is still under construction, however, making it likely that few, if any, works have been removed from the museum to date. (The museum staff declined to confirm this.)

According to staff members, the plan is for moving to begin in early 2009.
....
According to the renovation?s projected schedule, the museum staff and all of the objects will have completely vacated the building by September of 2009 so that the actual construction can begin. However, this timetable is contingent upon a routine [????, not if this were in Boston!!!!] public approval process that the museum has yet to begin.

It is estimated that the tearing down of old wings and construction of the new expansion will take three years, ending in 2012. After that, it will take at least another year to move back into the building and to complete commissioning of the new wings, which involves ensuring that the air quality is sufficient for the art collections to be reinstalled.

The goal is for the new, expanded Fogg to re-open in 2013, ....

The Quincy Street expansion proposed by architect Renzo Piano, who is also currently renovating the Isabella Stuart Gardener museum in Boston, will be the first substantial renovation of the Fogg. Additions have been made to the Prescott Street side of the facility, but the original 1927 section of the building?which replaced the 1895 building that first housed the museum?has never been significantly altered.

Piano?s plan will remove the Prescott Street additions to the museum, ?primarily because,? Manoogian says, ?those spaces were never really efficiently integrated into the actual building itself.? The Prescott Street additions were each designed and constructed at separate times and are therefore not uniform; each has its own entrance and its own floor-to-ceiling height.

?The new wing that we?re going to build in place of them on Prescott Street will be seamlessly integrated into the original building,? Manoogian says.

The historic elements and overall structure of the 1927 building cannot be altered because the building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1986, but the original section will still undergo extensive changes to its infrastructure. ?That 1927 building has lots of 1927 wiring and plumbing and it?s not an ideal setting for an art museum at all,? Manoogian says.

While much of the renovations process cannot be divulged to the public ?for security reasons,? the museum is expected to reveal its plans at various milestones throughout the project. Piano?s winning design for the museum included only conceptual drawings, so Piano and his associates are currently working on laying out the schematic plan for the new wing.

Once the schematic plan is complete, the museum will finally be able to seek building permits for the renovations. But since there is no timetable for the completion of the schematic plan, and since the museum has yet to secure public approval for much of the construction, there is no rush to evacuate the building just yet. .....

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=524226

Harvard has said no starting of any new museums in Allston (a modern art museum is proposed for the Charlesvieww apartment site) until the Fogg is done. And the somewhat mysterious art storage facility now being constructed will apparently replace the role of a similar facility and gallery that was to be the first new Harvard building in Allston (on the SW part of Barry's Corner).

 

[JimboJones]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

I don't remember any of this happening at the MFA and they had to move a lot of stuff off-site as well.

Is the reporter just exaggerating or is the Fogg being a little obsessive?

 

[PaulC]

Re: Fogg Art Museum at Harvard

I would go with obsessive. Does she have a background in arts or art conservation. Sounds like an article for the sake of an article.

If you have been to the MFA in the past few years it's depressing how much is closed. With new temporary exhibits currently in the process of installation, I think the MFA is at a low point right now with so little on display, maybe half what it was before construction. Art work has to be removed from adjoining walls and rooms. Theft is a major problem during any construction.

Chronicle this Wednesday:
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/chronicle/17555176/detail.html