Museum News > Boston MA > The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The special exhibition gallery on the first floor of the historic Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is dedicaced to historic and contemporary exhibitions. This gallery closed at the end of June 2010 to allow for preparatory and preservation work in the historic galleries related to the construction of the museum’s Renzo Piano-designed new wing. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will not present any historic or contemporary exhibitions in 2011 as a result.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is currently engaged in an Extension and Preservation Project which will enhance the experience of visitors and relieve pressures on the historic building and collection.
Designed as a work of art itself by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano, the new wing will incorporate Piano’s signature talent for integrating the historic and contemporary with a light-filled design and an uncompromising attention to detail. The new cultural landmark will be an appropriate and important addition to Boston’s Fenway Cultural District.
The new wing will include a new 2,000 square foot exhibition space featuring an entire north wall of glass, a skylight with micro louvers, and a movable ceiling to allow for the presentation of intimately-scaled as well as larger contemporary and historic exhibitions. The new building will also feature a state-of-the-art performance hall, education classrooms, working greenhouses, an orientation area for visitors, and more. Site prep and construction work began in late summer 2009. The new wing is expected to be completed in late 2011.
The Gardner will, however, continue to present signature floral installations in the interior courtyard garden, including the annual Hanging Nasturtiums and the new Chrysanthemums in the Courtyard displays, honoring Isabella Gardner’s horticultural legacy and the changing of the seasons.
Special exhibitions will return to the Gardner Museum upon completion and the opening of the new wing in early 2012.
ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM
280 The Fenway
Boston, MA 02115
