MFA 'light-footed' redesign has a minimum of ostentation
Sometimes less is more, even when it costs $425 million.
A case in point is Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, which recently unveiled an ambitious new master plan developed by the London-based firm of Foster and Partners. Under the plan, which may take several decades to complete, the museum will nearly double in size while adding a new American art wing, a study center and an underground parking garage.
The museum also plans to reopen its long-closed Fenway entrance, and to redeploy its main galleries and collections around a central circulation hub. Both changes should make the museum easier to navigate, even if you can't tell the difference between a Ming vase and a Paul Revere teapot.
But perhaps the biggest surprise is how well the new design fits into the MFA's existing layout. Indeed, this may be the most light-footed major museum expansion in history.
Think of it as stealth architecture.
The plan's self-effacing style is even more surprising given its timing. Ever since Frank Gehry's flamboyant Guggenheim Bilbao Museum opened in 1997, museums have looked at major building projects not only as a way to add more space but a chance to Make a Statement.
Foster and Partners is no stranger to the building-as-statement trend. In the late 1990s, the firm oversaw major renovations to London's venerable British Museum, including installation of a dramatic two-acre glass canopy over the museum's Great Court.
Glass also figures in the firm's most famous project to date: the New German Parliament in Berlin. The project's centerpiece is a bell-shaped glass dome, which rises above the former Reichstag (now the seat of Germany's unified government) as a symbol of democratic openness and accountability.
There's plenty of glass in the MFA's master plan, too. But the way Foster and his design team have used it -- as a kind of transparent mortar neatly troweled into the chinks and cavities between the MFA's existing buildings -- is the antithesis of Gehry-style flamboyance.
Here, form really does follow function.
Much of the new construction, in fact, won't even be visible from outside the museum. As if responding to some latent Puritan taboo against public ostentation, Foster and his team have placed most of their architectural fireworks on the inside -- notably in a pair of glass-enclosed courtyards that will function as light-filled resting and gathering places at the museum's heart.
The plan is also a boon to museum visitors, most of whom now enter through the I.M. Pei-designed West Wing, completed in 1981.
For temporary exhibits, like the MFA's current
Impressionist Still Life
show, the West Wing entrance is more than adequate. But for anyone who wants to visit the museum's permanent collection, it's a major headache. Just getting to the galleries on the museum's eastern side can feel like an art lovers' version of
The Great Race
.
According to museum officials, the new master plan will be implemented in stages. (A master plan is basically an architectural to-do list: it sets priorites, identifies general design goals and spells out where new construction will occur and how long it will take.)
In Phase I, the museum will demolish a suite of clunky East Wing galleries and replace them with a new wing dedicated to art from North and South America, as well as contemporary art. It will also glass over an adjoining courtyard and create a central circulation hub linking its north (Fenway) and south (Huntington Avenue) entrances.
Other amenities include new classroom and workshop spaces, a 150-seat movie theater and a top-floor restaurant with sweeping views of the Fenway and the Boston skyline.
At a press conference last month, MFA director Malcolm Rogers said the Phase I construction would take about five years.
Looking ahead, the Foster plan envisions a "crystal spine" running through the middle of the museum, from the new East Wing galleries to an expanded West Wing and study center on the museum's western edge. Meanwhile, a separate project -- a new underground garage -- would provide more on-site parking for visitors.
In all, the plan would would nearly double the museum's size, with most of the new construction wrapped in a glistening skin of heat- and UV-resistant glass.
At last month's press conference, Rogers refused to say how close the museum was to meeting its fundraising goal of $425 million. But based on what Foster has presented so far, it looks like it will be money well spent.
Bill Van Siclen's
On Design
column runs monthly in Arts. He can be reached by e-mail at bill
_
vansiclen@projo.com.
Printer-Friendly Version
