Harvard Art Museums Renovation and Expansion / Payette + Renzo Piano Building Workshop

Curated by ArchDaily

Architects: Payette, Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Area: 204000 ft²
Year: 2014
Photographs:Nic Lehoux, Michel Denancé, Aerial by Lesvants.com
Manufacturers: Goppion, Zone Display Cases, Thrislington Cubicles
Acoustics: Sandy Brown
Civil Engineering: Nitsch Engineering
Structure: Robert Silman Associates

Text description provided by the architects. The Harvard Art Museums are university museums, a place to collect and exhibit art, a great workshop to study, in direct contact with the artworks. Show, preserve, teach.

Harvard Art Museums Renovation and Expansion / Payette + Renzo Piano Building Workshop - Image 30 of 34 — Section

If I had to describe the new Harvard Art Museums in a synthetic image, I would say that the ground floor is urban, serving the city by providing life; the second and third floors are for the art and the people who come to know it; the fourth and fifth contain more specialized spaces for the students like the Art Study Center and the conservation lab.

Harvard Art Museums Renovation and Expansion / Payette + Renzo Piano Building Workshop - Image 3 of 34 — © Michel Denancé

It is a stratification, an overlap of spaces and services that proceeds upwards towards more specialized functions.

The hidden base of the museums’ machine is the storage, where the artworks are filed and protected from the effects of time; while the rest of the space, under the big glazed lantern, is open to the city and to the light.