Opening in 2012, the $118 million steel, glass, and copper-clad expansion to Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum by Renzo Piano Building Workshop will more than double the size of the current facility. Included in the project are a new entrance, music hall, gallery space, and other amenities for an institution that has remained largely unaltered since opening in 1903.
The original facility, a Venetian-style palazzo completed in 1901, will remain almost untouched as the new wing is connected to the original museum through a glass passageway. Rather than radically alter the museum experience, the design is intended to augment what is already there. Piano’s new four-story building will host visitor services, now in cramped quarters in the palace; a new 300 seat music hall, allowing the Gardner to stop holding concerts in its delicate and often overcrowded tapestry room; a triple-height gallery for temporary exhibitions; as well as new lobby space, offices, and conservation facilties. A second, smaller structure with a sloping glass roof will house a greenhouse and apartments for artists-in-residence. In total the wing will add 70,000 square feet to the museum’s current 60,000 square feet.
