HARVARD ART MUSEUMS

CAMBRIDGE, MA., USA

2014

The Harvard Art Museums reopened to the public in 2014 after a transformative renovation and expansion designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop that brings together the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger and the Arthur M. Sackler Museums within a single state-of-the-art facility, where highlights from the museums’ collections of over 250,000 works, many donated by University alumni, are displayed.

The essence of the new museums is expressed and experienced around the building’s heightened Calderwood Courtyard, the two lower levels originally constructed in 1927 to replicate a Renaissance-era square. Three new levels now rise through five stories to a glass roof “lantern” that suffuses the space with light. The design integrates the existing 1920s Georgian Revival building with the glazed rooftop structure, joining the entirety of the original and the new components of the project.