Project name:
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Addition
Project location:
Boston
Firm name:
Renzo Piano Building Workshop with Stantec
Jury comments:
In its third turn as a Medal finalist, this technologically-advanced machine of glass and light combines entry, gallery, reading room, music box, and offices. The Gardner addition includes extraordinary detailing and multiple physical experiences in its many spaces. Especially notable is the compressed, natural space leading to the entry of the vast, dark, original museum. Aspects of the circulation, the detailing, the massing, and the spatial connections were found by the jurors to be too dense. They looked for a sense of interaction with the original museum and the street, rather than a complete statement of “other.” Instead, they felt the massing distracts from the original building.
Client:
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Consultants: Touloukian Touloukian; aamodt / plumb architects; Payette; Boston Redevelopment Authority; Arup; Kessler McGuinness & Associates; Boston University; MIT Media Lab; MBTA; Urbanica
