Harvard Museums Fogg (Western European art), Busch-Reisinger (Central and Northern European art) and Sackler (Antiquity, Islamic, South and East Asian art) together own a collection of 250,000 pieces - one of the finest in the United States. At the same time, from the very beginning, they carried an educational function: the university during its history has trained many outstanding art historians and museum workers - also thanks to its most valuable "visual aids". However, by the end of the last century, the connection between museums and the university had significantly weakened: despite their location on its campus, among the students who attended them, Harvard students did not make up the majority. Therefore, it was decided to renovate not only their buildings, but also links with the "native" university.
The project was developed in the workshop of Renzo Piano since 1997, was implemented in the mid-2000s and was able to survive the economic crisis that ruined all other ambitious plans of Harvard - despite its considerable budget of $ 250 million. Perhaps the reason for the success is the importance for the United States of the traditions of museum and university patronage that merged here (the project was implemented mainly with private funds).
Choosing Piano for such a responsible task does not seem unusual: according to the conducted
a recent survey of 652 museum buildings built or expanded between 1995 and 2012 puts this architect in second place in terms of the number of such projects, and while Tadao Ando holds the lead, Piano's objects tend to have more status.
The new building for Harvard Art Museums is a rebuilt building of the Fogg Museum from the 1920s, from which now only the facade in the spirit of the Georgian style and the neo-Renaissance courtyard remain. Before the reconstruction, each of the three museums had its own, albeit dilapidated, building, but now the institutes have been "compacted".
Renzo Piano chose the motto of his work "show, store, teach": an important task was to create optimal conditions for teaching students on the example of genuine works of art. Therefore, the training center occupies a quarter of almost 19,000 m2 - the total area of the building - and is unparalleled in quality and size in the United States.
But the customers and the architect did not forget about the residents of Cambridge, where Harvard University is located, and about Boston, the metropolitan area of which this city is included. Therefore, the building now has a second, off-campus entrance, and the first floor, including a spectacular courtyard, a cafe and a shop, is open to everyone, even without buying a ticket. As a result, the lower tier of the building has become a real public space: during the opening hours of the museum, pedestrians can even take a shortcut through the building (the old and new entrances are located opposite each other).
Above are the halls of the permanent exhibition and temporary exhibitions, and at the very top, under a glazed roof visible from afar with an obligatory element of Piano's museum projects - a system of sun filters and screens - there is a training center and a restoration and research workshop. Below ground level there are storerooms and an auditorium with 300 seats.
