Even Renzo Piano knew he needed to save “the sacred oak.”

The internationally renowned architect – along with nearly everyone else with a stake in the project to unite three disparate Harvard University art museums under one roof in Cambridge – quickly recognized the intrinsic value of the expansive old oak tree, and ordered it not be cut down.

The venerated tree stands aside the university’s 87-year-old Fogg Museum on the edge of Harvard Yard, where designers and construction workers have transformed what had become, in places, a tired, dirty facility that was  showing its age for years.

The Harvard Art Museums project, set to open next fall, has brought the Fogg, the Busch-Reisinger and the Arthur M. Sackler museums together by demolishing portions of the “hodgepodge” the Fogg had become, said Peter Atkinson, director of facilities planning and management for Harvard’s art museums.

But the tree would stand as a symbol connecting the past to the present, where the two could coexist in symbiosis, acknowledging that while history should be preserved, modernity is not something to fear. That set the tone for the renovation project to come.

Improving Upon The Past

Built in the mid-1920s, the Fogg has been added onto seven subsequent times, creating more mashup than masterpiece. Besides that, the place had become a bit lackluster.

“Over a long period we grew out of code compliance, and there were no up-to-date climate systems or security,” Atkinson said.

Take, for example, the old lay light suspended above the courtyard in the center of the museum. A lay light is an architectural element, a lightbox, allowing additional illumination of a room, and is commonly used in spaces with few exterior windows.

The lay light at the Fogg, however, “was a lot of chicken wire and glass, and it was pretty dirty after 80 years,” Atkinson deadpanned.

Now, that’s all changed. The building’s red brick façade has been preserved and restored, as was insisted upon by the Cambridge Historical Commission. Beyond that, the architect had “carte blanche” to fully re-envision the property, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, said Charles Sullivan, executive director of the commission.

And re-envision Piano did. The design team, accompanied by construction manager Skanska USA, performed more than a year of demolition work. The original building had about 140,000 square feet of gallery and other space. The company demolished about 60,000 square feet of that. What was left was really just the skeleton of the original structure, said Kerim Evin, vice president of operations for Skanska USA Building. Then, the team worked to completely reconstruct the museum’s interior. Now, with the new construction, the property totals about 204,000 square feet.

A significant motivating factor for the project was also to improve the visitor experience, said Daron Manoogian, director of communications for the Harvard Art Museums. Circulation through the building has been “rationalized.” The old building had many entry points that weren’t centralized, and navigating its hallways was “very confusing,” he said. A central staircase now connects all six public levels.

Then there’s the issue of transparency. That’s something the property did not have prior to the project, Manoogian added. Now, there’s ample glass on the interior allowing those inside and outside the museum to see through the walls, so to speak, into different gallery spaces.  

Plus, pedestrians will now be able to walk into the museum’s central courtyard without paying an entrance fee to sit and read or visit the café that will be built inside, similar to the Boston Public Library.

“It will become a center of social activity,” Manoogian opined.

One of the more striking aspects of the architect’s design is seen from the exterior along Broadway. There, a glass and steel structure, designed to resemble a beacon or lantern that beckons visitors in to view the galleries, rises 28 feet above the highest height of the original structure.

The new museum-topper is essentially hidden from pedestrian view on Quincy Street. But the structure looms tall above Broadway. And that, the historical commission’s Sullivan said, is causing some ire among neighbors.

As a “late-breaking” design change, Piano’s team decided they wanted to extend the plane of the museum’s roof above the roof line. As aesthetically interesting as the design flair may or may not be, it now interrupts the view of Memorial Church along Broadway, erasing the sight lines pedestrians have enjoyed for decades.

“Many people are upset,” Sullivan said. “Piano is famous for keeping the design fluid until he turns the keys over to the client. I think we kind of dropped the ball. It’s not disastrous and doesn’t affect the close-up view of the building, it’s just that long view people have always had. That’s my only criticism.”

Email: jcronin@thewarrengroup.com