Closed to the public since November, Boston’s freshly refurbished Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will reopen to the public next week. But rather than throwing wide its original Venetian-style palazzo doors, it will welcome visitors through a different entrance: the recently completed new $144 million, 70,000-square-foot wing designed by Renzo Piano.
The architect's marvel of colorless glass and patinated copper now stands behind the historic 1902 building in an effort to alleviate some of the wear and tear that its 200,000 visitors a year have caused. Isabella Stewart Gardner, an ardent art collector, did not make it easy on the renovators: following her death in 1924, Gardner's last will and testament stipulated that the home of her precious collection remain unchanged. The museum had to seek approval from government boards and regulators to ensure that the expansion did not counter her will.
"The palace is the constant reference," Piano told reporters at yesterday's press preview, Reuters reported. "You are constantly in dialogue with the palace."
Adding new spaces for exhibitions, concerts, and educational programs, the addition does little to interrupt the apperance original building — it stands no higher, and its transparency allows continuous views of the original building and the lush gardens of its courtyards. The new amenities are seemingly endless: working greenhouses, expanded outdoor garden spaces, two artist-in-residence apartments, a new gift shop, and Café G, a restaurant with indoor and, season permitting, outdoor seating.
At 6,000 square feet, the 296-seat Calderwood Hall is the expansion's largest feature: a cube-shaped performance space, providing three tiers of balconies from which guests can view concerts below. The new 2,000-square-foot exhibition gallery is three times the size of that in the museum. It features a retractable ceiling of adjustable height to accommodate exhibitions of varying size and light-sensitivity, as well as a picture window framing gallery-goers' view of the original building. Both seemingly float above the transparent, glazed first floor, where the Richard E. Floor Living Room features plush red furniture on which visitors can lounge — a striking contrast to the green of the surrounding patina. A 50-foot-long glass hall through a grove of trees serves as passageway for visitors from one building to the next, opening to Gardner's lush, light-filled gardner courtyard. The original museum, while carefully restored, remains largely unchanged.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum reopens to the public on January 19.