Gardner Museum Expansion | Fenway

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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Found$ -- if I want to see flowers in February -- I can always go inside the Gardner

I'm just commenting that to truly judge a building in Boston -- you need to see it both in the winter when the bare bones are visible and in the summer when the lush green can hide a lot and sometimes really accentuate a lot.

Similarly, in the typically bleak late winter something such as the Greenway just might not be very inviting -- come back in June when the kids, pets, water are all at play -- its a totally different aspect of the overall experience -- and it will be different again in the early autumn and yet again in the late spring if there are flowering trees.

So to fully judge Piano's chef d'oeuvre we need to see it throughout the year as well as at night and day --that's why Monet painted the same facade of Rouen Cathedral more than 50 times

In addition, I think that I'll wait to judge it until after I see the inside and perhaps hear some music as well
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

those photos make it seem tolerable...only problem I have is that the building just doesn't scream museum or even whisper it...i mean look how conspicuous the HVAC is...looks like a lab building or a school.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

whighlander said:
Found$ -- if I want to see flowers in February -- I can always go inside the Gardner

I'm just commenting that to truly judge a building in Boston -- you need to see it both in the winter when the bare bones are visible and in the summer when the lush green can hide a lot and sometimes really accentuate a lot.

Similarly, in the typically bleak late winter something such as the Greenway just might not be very inviting -- come back in June when the kids, pets, water are all at play -- its a totally different aspect of the overall experience -- and it will be different again in the early autumn and yet again in the late spring if there are flowering trees.

So to fully judge Piano's chef d'oeuvre we need to see it throughout the year as well as at night and day --that's why Monet painted the same facade of Rouen Cathedral more than 50 times

In addition, I think that I'll wait to judge it until after I see the inside and perhaps hear some music as well
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Truly good architecture should be appealing and functional in both the winter and summer in a climate like Boston. Waiting for the flowers to bloom is not a valid argument towards the integrity of a building's architecture. It should be responsive to its site and climate. Architects never show renderings of a winter scene, yet for many months of the year, that is the reality. Architects should be striving to create dynamic and appealing structures for all seasons.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

I went to hear Cecile Licad this weekend (she's amazing) and was at the top (4th) tier of the concert hall. Very intimate, wonderful acoustics, but too vertical IMHO. Really, you are staring directly down on the performer from a 30 foot height. Any female performer wearing a low-cut gown would not be comfortable--you are literally forced to look down into their cleavage (not complaining--she's as beautiful as she is talented and her gown was not particularly low-cut), still...
Also, having to stare down instead of out for extended periods of time did seem a little uncomfortable. The top 3 tiers (all but the ground tier) are only a single, uninterrupted row deep--again, contributes to a sense of intimacy, but it was also a bit disconcerting given the height. My girlfriend couldn't look down because of the height and missed the great view of her hands moving across the keyboard (though she grudgingly had to admire the cleavage as well :)).
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

Tombstoner said:
I went to hear Cecile Licad this weekend (she's amazing) and was at the top (4th) tier of the concert hall. Very intimate, wonderful acoustics, but too vertical IMHO. Really, you are staring directly down on the performer from a 30 foot height. Any female performer wearing a low-cut gown would not be comfortable--you are literally forced to look down into their cleavage (not complaining--she's as beautiful as she is talented and her gown was not particularly low-cut), still...
Also, having to stare down instead of out for extended periods of time did seem a little uncomfortable. The top 3 tiers (all but the ground tier) are only a single, uninterrupted row deep--again, contributes to a sense of intimacy, but it was also a bit disconcerting given the height. My girlfriend couldn't look down because of the height and missed the great view of her hands moving across the keyboard (though she grudgingly had to admire the cleavage as well :)).
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The hall does seem too vertical. I don't normally get vertigo and I was feeling the effect just from the pictures.

These reactions are making me reconsider a similar scheme I was going to use in my studio project.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

Tombstoner said:
I went to hear Cecile Licad this weekend (she's amazing) and was at the top (4th) tier of the concert hall. Very intimate, wonderful acoustics, but too vertical IMHO. Really, you are staring directly down on the performer from a 30 foot height. Any female performer wearing a low-cut gown would not be comfortable--you are literally forced to look down into their cleavage (not complaining--she's as beautiful as she is talented and her gown was not particularly low-cut), still...
Also, having to stare down instead of out for extended periods of time did seem a little uncomfortable. The top 3 tiers (all but the ground tier) are only a single, uninterrupted row deep--again, contributes to a sense of intimacy, but it was also a bit disconcerting given the height. My girlfriend couldn't look down because of the height and missed the great view of her hands moving across the keyboard (though she grudgingly had to admire the cleavage as well :)).
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Tomb -- from your description I had this vision of loosely constrained simple harmonic motion :=}

My wife used to prefer to take visitors to the Pru rather than the JH as she was uncomfortable with the low railing and exposed glass in the JH -- now she suffers from a chronic neck problem limiting here ability to look down for extended periods -- I fear we will never again get to hear anything at the Gardner unless we are on the floor level
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

whighlander said:
Tomb -- from your description I had this vision of loosely constrained simple harmonic motion :=}

My wife used to prefer to take visitors to the Pru rather than the JH as she was uncomfortable with the low railing and exposed glass in the JH -- now she suffers from a chronic neck problem limiting here ability to look down for extended periods -- I fear we will never again get to hear anything at the Gardner unless we are on the floor level
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Gotta love that harmonic motion...
I think the ground or the first tier are ideal and would not be a strain on the neck (for piano recitals, the first tier behind the performer would be the sweet spot).
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

czsz said:
The New Republic really, really likes this building:

http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/102108/renzo-piano-gardner-museum-boston-architecture
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Cz - Likes is not the proper descriptive term -- its a bit more like the experience my doggy pal has when he hits on a particularly exciting odor trail in the park - just short of Sexual Ecstasy


Renzo Piano’s new building is a triumph of dialectical thinking. Piano has responded to the gilded and brocaded inwardness of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Venetian palace with a structure that is all gleaming, transparent modern geometry. As an homage to Mrs. Gardner’s great central garden, Piano offers a magnificent, hi-tech greenhouse that you can look into as you enter the new building. And the Gardner’s legendary concert series will continue, now in Piano’s sensuously severe Calderwood Performance Hall, a tall, square, airy yet intimate room, with three balconies overlooking a central performance space. In its own way, Piano’s building is every bit as luxurious as Mrs. Gardner’s Venetian palace. This is, come to think of it, exactly the sort of museum that a Milanese billionaire would want to hold his art collection today; he might well commission Renzo Piano, a fellow Italian, to do the job. Boston has once again, through the generosity of the Gardner, been the beneficiary of the best that Italy has to offer. Where else in the museum world has a building program designed to bring an old institution into the twenty-first century demonstrated this kind of loving respect for the past? Under the guidance of Anne Hawley, the museum’s director, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has brought off what amounts to a miracle.

Jed Perl is the art critic for The New Republic.
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I don't remember what Jed said about the building project led by Malcolm and conducted by Norman in the shop just across the street
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

Wow. "A triumph of dialectical thinking." Who writes this shit?
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

^ IMO the Shard ruined London's otherwise rather nicely-developing skyline. It's ungainly huge at its base, way out of proportion with anything nearby, and was developed in entirely the wrong place. It would have looked fantastic in the City, but in Southwark it's overbearing. Imagine Boston building a giant, Dubai and/or North Korea-style glass pyramid in Charlestown for comparison's sake.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

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Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

I see that the Piano design for the Belkin proposal in the Financial District is surfacing again and (sorry for the stream of consciousness) that made me think of all the reasons I don't like Piano which made me think that my dislike of the Gardner addition is actually growing as I come to realize that it is not just a bad dream from which I'll awake. It really is that ugly.

Now that we've lived with it for several months, I'm wondering what others think. Better than expected or worse than feared?
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

I've warmed up to it a tiny bit. I guess I'm still in the initial "it's weird" phase but I have started to appreciate some of the details, which IMO is where Renzo shines. Still haven't been inside yet.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

This addition has given the "Palace" a new feel. With age the copper will mature. The one thing I did not like about the addition was a 3 story exibit room on the second floor. Seemed to be a wast of display space to me. It was a media presentaion the times I visited.
 
Re: Gardner Museum to undertake $60 million expansion

I thought the interior felt very institutional, almost like I was in a medical facility.
 
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