Although it’s only a short walk from Boston’s revered Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum remained one of the city’s little-known gems for over a hundred years.  Even the notoriety of an unsolved heist of thirteen priceless art works in March 1990 did not seem to increase the flow of visitors to the stately mansion nestled in a curve of the Emerald Necklace.  Perhaps that is changing now.  In 1999, the Museum decided to build a new addition to the historic palace.  Designed by award-winning architect Renzo Piano, it opened in January of this year.

Since early this year, a friend and I had talked about visiting, and finally we decided that today was the day.  When the Museum opened at 11 am under cloudless blue summer skies, we were one of the first through the door, now located in the New Wing.  The new addition is four stories high and includes a number of different functional spaces, including an orientation room for visitors, studio spaces, greenhouses, a cafe and shop, a concert hall, and galleries for changing exhibitions.  We wandered through the rooms for a bit, then joined a short architectural tour at noon.

The docent emphasized that the addition was designed primarily for administrative functions and to support the visitor experience.  The intention was to preserve the integrity of the original structure and to focus attention on the original museum as an “object of desire.”  For example, materials used in the new addition, the brick, copper, glass, and stone, are the same types of materials used in the old building.  The transition to the old building is through a glass-enclosed walkway, surrounded by greenery, which leads directly into the atrium, with its changing horticultural displays and marble sculptures.

Mrs Gardner was a true patron of the arts, and throughout her life supported both visual artists and musicians.  In fact, concerts were held at her home since the opening celebration in 1903.  This tradition is preserved in the new addition with the inclusion of a 300-seat concert space, with three balcony levels of front-row seating, surrounding a central performance space.  Supposedly, the acoustics are wonderful.

The new addition will also be LEED-certified by the US Green Building Council.  I was fascinated to hear that the building includes a geothermal well system, drilled deep into the ground in this marshy area.  I wish we could have had a tour of these HVAC systems, but I don’t think they’ve envisioned doing this.

By this time, we were both hungry, so we left to eat lunch at a pasta place in the Fenway, briefly visited the Kelleher Rose Garden, then returned to Fenway Court in the afternoon to wander through the Museum and exclaim over our favorite art works.  We’ve both been here before, years ago, but there seems to be more effort made now to educate visitors on what they are seeing.  Mrs Gardner’s interests were wide-ranging:  she collected from all over the world, from America to Europe to Asia, and in every medium, from paintings to sculpture to textiles to manuscripts, and I do think her taste was exquisite.  To put it a bit crudely, she knew how to “mix and match” and come up with something visually appealing.  Please do follow the link above and read more about this remarkable woman.