Our Transformation Begins

This summer marks an extraordinary milestone for the Harvard University Art Museums, when we will at last begin the historic renovation and transformation of our physical facilities. As you may know, on June 30, 2008, we intend to close our building at 32 Quincy Street—the current home of the Fogg Art Museum and the Busch-Reisinger Museum—to begin a long-awaited and much-needed renovation. We have been planning this renovation for over five years, and it will enable us to create a state-of-the-art facility for all three of our museums—the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Sackler. While we plan to bring all three museums under one roof, each will retain its distinct identity with larger exhibition galleries as well as a dedicated study center. Visitor amenities will include a café, museum shop, and new elevators and restrooms. Fundamental to this project are our goals of increased accessibility to our collections for students, scholars, and the public; enhanced collaboration and interdisciplinary work across all of our curatorial departments; and a larger role for the Art Museums in Harvard’s undergraduate curriculum and educational mission.

We continue to work with architect Renzo Piano on the design of the 32 Quincy Street renovation, and we look forward to the May opening at the Fogg of a special exhibition of the design. While construction dates are contingent upon the community approval process, we hope construction will be under way sometime in 2009 and the newly renovated building will open in 2013. The movement of our collections, the age of the building, the care that must be taken to preserve its historic elements, and the complexity of the project are all contributing factors to this lengthy period of renovation. However painful this may be in the short-term, it is necessary in order to achieve both our long-term goals and the realization of more rational facilities to better fulfill our teaching and research missions.

Throughout the spring and summer of 2008, we will begin to reinstall the Sackler Museum at 485 Broadway with representative works from the collections of all three museums. The reconfiguration of the Sackler galleries will enable us to provide public access to our collections during the period of renovation on Quincy Street. We are excited to present all of the different parts of our collections—including artworks from ancient to contemporary times; highlights from our Asian, Islamic, and Busch-Reisinger Museum collections; impressionist masterpieces from the Maurice Wertheim collection—together in new and thought-provoking ways. In order to complete this rather large reinstallation project, including the simultaneous movement of numerous objects in the collection, we will also close the Sackler Museum on June 30, 2008, for a few weeks. We hope to open the first few galleries in late summer, and we look forward to a formal opening of the new presentation in September 2008.

We’ll also put considerable effort into diverse and enlightening programming during the renovation period, both at the Sackler and at other venues within and outside of Harvard. This will pose interesting challenges to our curatorial, education, programming, and membership staff, challenges I’m sure we will meet, given our staff’s creativity and talents and the resources here at Harvard. The prospect of working in partnership during this time with institutions outside the University represents another unique opportunity for the Art Museums.

Lastly, Harvard remains committed to the development of arts and culture facilities in Allston, and we continue to work with the University and other Harvard arts institutions on a comprehensive plan for Allston. We anticipate that the result will yield a new, permanent location for the presentation and study of our modern and contemporary collections, in keeping with the plan we announced last year. We’ll keep you informed as plans progress, and beginning later this spring, our Web site will contain updates about our efforts. As always, we appreciate your patience during this exciting and challenging time as we transform our facilities into visual art laboratories for the 21st century.

Thomas W. Lentz
Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director