Why doesn’t the new building look like the existing one?
The expansion will embody an architectural sensibility of its own time and place and will respond to the current and future needs of the Museum of Art and of the University. Just as the existing building reflected the Beaux Arts revival tastes of its time, the new building reflects design currents of the 21st century. The Museum is fortunate to work with an architect with a demonstrated sensitivity to museum site and facility requirements as well as urban planning. Historic preservation guidelines, to which we are adhering for this project, suggest that additions to historic structures be stylistically distinct from the original; expanded historic facilities must declare where the “old” ends and the new begins. The massing and scale of the new wing is in keeping with the scale of the buildings along State Street as well as with the building that once occupied the site, the Romance Languages Building demolished in the 1950s. The new wing is in fact shorter than Alumni Memorial Hall, and
