Project name: Harvard Art Museums Renovation and Expansion
Project overview: The project supports the client’s research and cultural mission and consolidates three museums under one roof in state-of-the-art facilities. To accommodate the expanded program and conceal the extensive mechanical systems, the design meticulously renovated the historic structure and married it to a sensitive addition housing the most challenging technical elements. Addition and renovation are knit together by a glass rooftop addition which creates a new home for the Museums’ signature Study Centers and Conservation Laboratory. This assembly drives natural light deep into the heart of the Museums, returning the courtyard to its rightful position as the nexus of the building.
Project location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Firm name: Renzo Piano Building Workshop in collaboration with Payette
Jury comments: Becoming a neighbor of Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center in a historically dense campus of Harvard University is both enviable and challenging, a riddle the project boldly accepts and elegantly resolves like a Zen koan. The building embodies all of the traditional tenets of beauty in the way it engages light, lightness, material and structure. Design thoughtfully weaves neighborhood textures into the new addition of the museum, while restoring the existing historic structure and reviving the courtyard to become a new public space that feels welcoming, warm, and filled with the endless variations of diurnal and seasonal play of light. The mix of natural and artificial lighting is as carefully curated as the exhibits housed in the building. Every inch of this building was considered in the design and construction to work harmoniously together. The building deftly connects the inside with the outside, the ground with the sky, and the building with the larger landscape of the region. The jury wants this building to encourage–and celebrate that its beauty is accessible to people of all backgrounds
