Gardner Museum Expansion | Fenway

Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

Well it's gorgeous on the inside but did anyone really doubt it? The exterior is still a giant "fuck you" to the original building.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

It's very jarring, van. It'll take some getting used to. To put it in musical terms, Berg's Violin Concerto can share a concert program with the Brahms Fourth, but it helps if the concert-goer can recognize Bach's influence on both compositions.

I'd have preferred buff-colored roman brick similar to the Palace, instead of the red RPBW chose.

I'll contend that the patinated copper facade panels "refer" to the copper gutters and flashing on the original building.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

vanshnookenraggen said:
Well it's gorgeous on the inside but did anyone really doubt it? The exterior is still a giant "fuck you" to the original building.
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The magic of the Gardner is entirely on the inside. The outside of the building has always been quite banal.

If one were to agree with that (and I'm not sure you do), then I really can't see that it's a giant f you to the original. Like the original building, Piano's best work is the inside spaces, and if you walk through the new sequences, the permeable courtyard and the new garden, it's quite deferential to the original.

I would say that the biggest issue is the reorientation of the entry. But once the decision was made to expand, there was no real way to avoid this. The original building was simply not equipped to deal with 200,000 visitors per year.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

The biggest 'eff you' committed by this addition was the failure to incorporate the stable house, which was instead destroyed.

I think the new buildings look extremely awkward from the outside. It will be interesting to see whether they get better or worse with age. The large red and white tree graphic is a good addition.

I'm excited to see the interior.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

Anyone attending the grand-reopening today?
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

statler said:
Anyone attending the grand-reopening today?
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Wasn't able to get a ticket. I get in to the Gardener and MFA free because I'm a Wentworth student anyways. I plan to check it out next week.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

^A surprisingly blunt criticism.

I'm reserving final judgement until I've been inside. Are people still up for a meet-up? Should be a bit easier to get in there now that the initial excitement has died down a bit.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

^^^ Its as if Haweley didn't have enough aesthetic sense to tell Piano that the turquoise elephant wasn't going to work.

Let's see how Piano does with the addition to the Fogg.

And still no judgment from Mr. Campbell. Perhaps he (and the Globe) would rather not talk about the turquoise elephant.

By contrast, it will be interesting to see what Rick Mather does with the new wing of the Peabody Essex. A blurb from Mather's website:

The museum said Mather was chosen from a shortlist of international architects because of "the firm's keen sensitivity to urban context, ability to unite contemporary design with existing structures, and success in integrating art and architecture".

Mather will build on the 1977 Dodge Wing and a 2003 Moshe Safdie-designed extension. The design will also highlight Yin Yu Tang, the museum's unique Qing dynasty Chinese house, and East India Marine Hall, a national historic landmark.

Mather has a long history of working in the cultural sector. Most recently his practice completed a £5 million extension to the Ashmolean Egypt Galleries in Oxford.
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^^^ The first paragraph could be read as a commentary on Piano's Gardner.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

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Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

^ kz's lens can make anything look good.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

czsz said:
^ kz's lens can make anything look good.
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Need to see it when this interminable winter is over and the snow melts ( we actually still have a few isolated pockets of snow out here in Lexington -- it must be all those super talls that are shadowing everything)

Anyway -- to really judge the building in its ethos we need to wait for a couple of months until the vegetation (that would be Persephone) comes back to us from her hiatus in Hades
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

whighlander said:
Anyway -- to really judge the building in its ethos we need to wait for a couple of months until the vegetation (that would be Persephone) comes back to us from her hiatus in Hades
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Disagree on that note -- as I've written elsewhere around here, we can't judge Boston architecture/urbanism solely on how it looks in given (usually warmer) seasons when it's just as often freezing or at least brown and uninviting outside.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

i would say that waiting a few months until there are plants growing isn't fair, but i will say that waiting a few years until the patina on the copper panels becomes more natural, and any vines or other climbing plans take hold, is.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

found5dollar said:
i would say that waiting a few months until there are plants growing isn't fair, but i will say that waiting a few years until the patina on the copper panels becomes more natural, and any vines or other climbing plans take hold, is.
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My favorite part of the AR article is when Piano says it "does need a little help."
 
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