A system of glazed glass panels supported by cables allows soaring transparent walls to enclose the museum courtyard.
A recently opened renovation and addition to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) by the cutting-edge architecture firm of Foster + Partners, London makes extensive use of a new glass system that lets light and air flood into a new wing that houses the institution’s major American art collection. Named the “Art of the Americas” wing, the tribal, decorative, and fine artworks have been entirely reset as part of a 10-year strategic plan to recontextualize a broad range of work that includes everything from pre-Columbian tribal art to 19th-century paintings. The museum officially opened the doors of its new wing on November 20th, 2010, more than doubling the number of works on exhibit to 5,000. The newly built Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard, a soaring glass structure enclosing one of the Museum’s two courtyards, adjoins the new wing and measures more-than-12,000 square feet and rises to 63 feet. It is almost entirely composed of glass using 504 large panels, which total nearly 30,000 square feet of area. In a video about the new addition, museum director Malcolm Rogers mentions gatherings and events that will hopefully take place here to make the space “a new forum for the people of Boston.”
The new addition seeks to find a contextual harmony with the Museum of Fine Arts original Beaux Arts buidling.
The Norman Foster-designed additions incorporate a modernist aesthetic into the museum’s 1909 Beaux Arts building. The ambitious expansion and renovation began in 2005 and was supported by a fundraising campaign that raised $504 million for new construction and renovations, the endowment of programs and positions, and annual operations. Totalling 121,307 square feet, the new wing for the Art of Americas collection is located on the east side of the Museum along Forsyth Way. Foster + Partners developed a state-of-the-art glazing system for the glass with Seele, Inc. of Gersthofen, Germany that allows passersby to see inside and museum visitors to see outside the building and still comply with stringent energy-efficiency goals.
The glass wall was suspended from steel trusses, allowing it to rise 63 feet and create the impression of total transparency.
Seele built the new roof on the steel frame of the existing atrium, and closed off the open sides with glass cable-net façades. Cable nets are elegant minimalist structural systems that provide optimum transparency when the effect of a sheer glass membrane is desired. The glass façades comply with high energy-efficiency requirements and the museum’s special lighting specifications: no UV light, high level of daylight with natural color rendering. Computer simulations enabled condensation scenarios to be studied. The results of the simulations governed the design of the glazing: double and triple glazing, and at particularly exposed places a low E coating as well. Completely prefabricated, including the glazing, sections were delivered in containers and lifted into position on the façade by crane. Stepped insulating glass units combined with structural silicone joints produce a flush appearance that harmonizes well with the large-format stone slabs.
For a visual tour of the new Art of the Americas wing, watch a video on the museum Website.
—Patricia Linthicum
Guest blogger Patricia Linthicum writes Looking At Glass, a blog that focuses on the use of glass in interior design and architecture.