Transformation

Transformation is the word we use most often to describe the essential turning point at which we find ourselves as a university art museum. Throughout the Harvard Art Museum's history, our collection has been developed with an emphasis on serving our teaching and research mission. But over time, the ways in which that collection was displayed and made available for study, as well as the facilities that housed our works, were too often limited or rooted in the past.

In collaboration with world-renowned architect Renzo Piano, we intend to create a state-of-the-art museum that will allow us to broaden the scope of our role on campus and in the community. The renovation of our building at 32 Quincy Street will bring together our three distinctive museums — the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler museums — in one facility and create a new platform for teaching through the arts.

Students, faculty, scholars, and the public will have significantly greater access to our collection, not only through larger exhibition galleries, but through new, expanded study centers that will become a hallmark of the new museum. Building on the concept created over 80 years ago of the museum as a "fine arts laboratory," the new Harvard Art Museum will combine 21st-century exhibition space, study centers, conservation labs, classrooms, and visitor amenities.

The renovation will provide a seamless integration of old and new, restoring the original Fogg Museum building and its iconic central courtyard while constructing a new wing of galleries for the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Sackler Museum. Visitors and scholars alike will be able to experience the depth and breadth of our collection all within one facility.

After many years of advanced planning and design, the project is moving to the next phase as construction has begun. The University has a comprehensive construction mitigation program and is committed to conducting construction operations in a manner that will minimize the disturbance to the public. For updates on the details and progress of construction, please visit: www.construction.harvard.edu/32quincyst/index.html.

An undertaking this ambitious and complex will take some time to complete, but in the end it will make a tremendous contribution to Harvard and the community for decades to come. We eagerly anticipate opening the new building in 2013.

While all of this is happening, please visit Re-View, the ongoing exhibition of our collection at the Sackler Museum, and take advantage of our continuing extensive slate of lectures, symposia, concerts, and other programs. We look forward to seeing you soon.

Our future is filled with countless possibilities, and the transformation of our facilities is leading the way toward more intimate, transformative experiences with works of art for all.