Yale University Art Gallery Renovation and Expansion 1 2 3 ORO editions Publishers of Architecture, Art, and Design Gordon Goff: Publisher USA, ASIA, EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST www.oroeditions.com [email protected] Copyright © 2013 by ORO editions ISBN: Color Separations and Printing: ORO Group Ltd. Printed in China. Text printed using offset sheetfed printing process in 5 color on 157gsm premium matt art paper with an off-line gloss acqueous spot varnish applied to all photographs. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying of microfilm- ing, recording, or otherwise (except that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publisher. ORO editions has made every effort to minimize the overall carbon footprint of this project. As part of this goal, ORO editions, in association with Global ReLeaf, have arranged to plant two trees for each and every tree used in the manufacturing of the paper produced for this book. Global ReLeaf is an international campaign run by American Forests, the nation’s oldest nonprofit conserva- tion organization. Global ReLeaf is American Forests’ education and action program that helps individuals, organizations, agencies, and corporations improve the local and global environment by planting and caring for trees. North American Distribution: Publishers Group West / Perseus 1700 Fourth Street Berkeley, CA 94710, USA www.pgw.com International Distribution: www.oroeditions.com/distribution 4 5 Books in this series YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY Brooklyn Museum Entry Pavilion and Plaza RENOVATION AND EXPANSION Sarah Lawrence College Heimbold Visual Arts Center William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park New York Hall of Science This is one in a series of books, each of which tells Scandinavia House the story of a single building. It is our hope that Holland Performing Arts Center as these books accumulate alongside our body of Mercersburg Academy Burgin Center work, they, in their aggregate, will form a profile of Lycée Français de New York our design intentions. New York Botanical Garden Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory University of Michigan Biomedical Science Research Building Ennead Architects WGBH Headquarters Brooklyn Museum Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art Newseum/Freedom Forum The Standard, New York Frank Sinatra School of the Arts Penn State Dickinson School of Law Syracuse University Newhouse III National Museum of American Jewish History Common Ground, The Schermerhorn Williams College Paresky Center OSU Scott Laboratory New York City Center Natural History Museum of Utah Stanford Law School Neukom Building Westchester Community College Gateway Center Yale University Art Gallery The Zucker Hillside Hospital, Inpatient Care Center Weill Cornell Medical College, Weill Greenberg Center, Belfer Research Building Stanford University, Bing Concert Hall IN HIS WORDS I resolved, therefore, to begin a new series of my alma mater, but she was rich, and amply endowed. paintings of revolutionary subjects, of a smaller size I then thought of Yale — although not my alma, yet than those in the Capitol, and to solace my heavy she was within my native state, and poor. hours by working on them. I chose the size of six feet by nine, and began. The Gallery now contains fifty five pictures by my ow’n hand, painted at various periods, from my The cholera made its appearance in New York, earliest essay of the Battle of Cannae, to my last soon after I commenced, and was peculiarly fatal composition, the Deluge, including the eight small in the sixth ward, in which I lived. I was busily original pictures of the American revolution, which employed upon the Declaration of Independence, contain the portraits painted from life. when I was attacked by this deadly disease, but, by Thus I derive present subsistence principally from the blessing of Providence on the kind care of my this source, and have besides the happy reflec- JOHN TRUMBULL Left: Trumbull Gallery, Yale University, New Haven, 1860s friends, it passed away in a few days, and without tion, that when I shall have gone to my rest, these The Yale University Art Gallery was founded in any serious consequences. works will remain a source of good to many a poor, 1832 when history painter and portraitist John Right: Reverse of U.S. two-dollar bill, featuring Trumbull’s perhaps meritorious and excellent man. Trumbull sold 28 paintings and 60 miniature por- Declaration of Independence. The original painting is in Funds, however, began to diminish, and I sold scraps traits to the University. Trumbull himself designed the museum’s collection. of furniture, fragments of plate, &c. Many pictures The large set of Revolutionary paintings was not in- a Neoclassical building to exhibit the works. When remained in my hands unsold, and to all appearance cluded in this contract, and indeed, at its date, they the Trumbull Gallery opened to the public on unsaleable. At length the thought occurred to me, did not exist, having been painted since. Five of the October 25, 1832, it became the first college art that although the hope of a sale to the nation, or series are finished, and should my long life be still museum in the United States. While the Trumbull to a state, became more and more desperate from further prolonged, I trust they will all be completed, Gallery is no longer standing, today’s Yale University day to day, yet, in an age of speculation, it might be and they will remain a legacy for posterity. Art Gallery is housed in three historic structures possible, that some society might be will- ing to designed by four architects. possess these paintings, on condition of paying by Autobiography, reminiscences and letters a life annuity. I first thought of Harvard College, my from 1756 to 1841, by John Trumbull 8 9 YALE UNIVERSITY ARTS AREA PLANNING STUDY 10 11 Street Hall (Peter Bonnett Wight, 1865) Old Yale Art Gallery (Egerton Swartwout, 1928) For the first time in its history, the Gallery occupies all three buildings – Street Hall (Peter Bonnett Wight, 1865), the Old Yale Art Gallery (Egerton Swartwout, 1928) and the iconic Louis Kahn build- ing (1953) – and thus is able to showcase signifi- cantly more of its permanent collection at one time than ever before. The Art Gallery renovation and expansion design celebrates the stylistic distinctions of three historic buildings and weaves them into a cohesive museum environment dedicated to the display of art. Louis Kahn building (1953) 12 13 YALE UNIVERSITY ARTS AREA PLANNING STUDY The Center for British Art, the Art Gallery, the Three primary objectives drove the study: to The ultimate scheme called for the creation of a The plan also proposed the expansion of the Art Arts Library, History of Art Department and the determine the optimal use for each existing facility new arts complex on York Street comprised of a Gallery, which would occupy the three-building Schools of Drama, Art and Architecture, and the by analyzing its physical condition, available space, restored A+A Building and an additional building complex of the Kahn Building, Swartwout Hall and Repertory Theatre comprise the campus’s Arts expandability and potential; to encourage, through to house program of the School of Architecture, Street Hall. This materialized in Ennead’s Kahn Build- Area. This comprehensive programming, building these optimizations, a synergy and interdependence the History of Art Department, the Arts Library ing renovation of 2006 and the Yale Art Gallery survey and planning study analyzed seventeen of the arts at Yale while at the same time reinforc- and the Digital Media Center. This plan was realized Renovation and Expansion in 2012. facilities of Yale’s prestigious arts programs and, ing the individual identities of each unit; to encour- in the 2008 Rudolph Hall renovation and Loria predicated on the increasingly cross-disciplinary age an interaction between the arts at Yale and Center expansion. nature of the arts in the twenty-first century, both its immediate community and its many visitors. defined direction for future development. 14 15 RESTORATION OF THE KAHN BUILDING 16 17 This renovation of Louis Kahn’s seminal Yale Art Gal- lery restores the architect’s design intentions, reverses past interventions and upgrades outmoded structural and environmental systems to provide providing the campus and New Haven with an educational and cultural resourceKahn designed building for the optimal preserva- Old Yale Art Gallery Street Hall tion and display of the extensive collection. Acclaimed for its bold geometry, daring use of light and space and its structural and engineering innova- tions, Louis Kahn’s first significant building houses Yale’s visual art collection. Over the years, the mu- seum’s open spaces had been partitioned into smaller galleries, classrooms and offices. The renovation once again provides the unobstructed, light-filled vistas Kahn envisioned. 18 19 Regarded as a groundbreaking milestone in the development of the modern glass wall, Kahn’s window-wall was nevertheless subject to struc- tural and thermal problems originating from the materials and technology available at the time of its construction. The newly designed window-wall system duplicates the appearance and profiles of the original and accommodates modern museum standards of climate control. 20 21 The complete replacement of the building’s original thermal problems. Following a lengthy and complex window-wall system, most dramatically along the process of planning and testing, the architects and west and north facades was a particularly complex engineers were successful in designing a window-wall and challenging aspect of the renovation. An impor- system that at once addresses the original wall’s tech- tant milestone in the development of the modern nical shortcomings, duplicates the appearance and glass wall, this has long been regarded as one of the profiles of the original, and accommodates modern most distinctive and beautiful features of the Kahn museum standards of climate control.