Fogg Museum Renewal Continues

The Harvard arts community anticipates the culmination of the extensive renovation of the Fogg Museum—currently slated for late 2013—will physically unite the Busch, Sackler, and Fogg Museums and will realign the way that students interact with art.

The building renewal—estimated to cost $350 to $400 million—began in early 2008. According to Harvard Art Museum Director Thomas W. Lentz in 2007, the structure has been overdue for renovations for over 50 years.

“Our goal is to consolidate them on one site, under one roof, as one destination,” Lentz said in an interview last year. “What we like about this idea is that it allows us to have a much greater dialogue between those three collections.”

While initially blueprinted for development in Allston, the Prescott Street museum started the process of its renewal in 2008, after the University’s plans for a centralized museum across the river fell through due to the financial crisis.

No longer to be called the Fogg, the new Harvard Art Museum will encompass collections from the Fogg, the Sackler, and the Busch. The singular institution will have improved storage facilities and a more organized exhibit layout.

In addition, students and faculty will have the chance to contribute to the curating of exhibitions in a more interactive process.

“Students in HAA, History, Hist and Lit—there’s no limit to who can stage an exhibition,” History of Art and Architecture Professor Joseph L. Koerner said.

Much of the artwork displaced by the Fogg renovations is currently being stored in the Sackler, and faculty have turned to increased use of Harvard’s depository in Somerville to compensate for the temporary loss of Fogg classroom space lending itself to interactive art instruction.

“The Somerville depository has seminar rooms in which the faculty have brought students to look at works of art,” Koerner said.

But the renovations have prevented a generation of Harvard students from ever stepping foot into a completed Fogg museum.

Director of Communications for the Harvard Arts Museum Daron J. Manoogian said that the target date remains at 2013 for the completion of the project.

“However, we are continually reassessing that date based on construction logistics,” Manoogian said. “We are still working on the below-grade portion of construc tion before any new construction begins above ground later this year.”

—Staff writer Gautam S. Kumar can be reached at gkumar@college.harvard.edu.