Museum Expansion: Renovation of a Masterpiece -- Yale's Louis I. Kahn Building by Philip Eliasoph from Antiques & Fine Art magazine

A feature of the restoration is the new fourth floor study center with its digital database of all 185,000 objects in the collection. In recent times this upper floor was a dark labyrinth of Asian art and rare print exhibits. The new space is a bright and appealing art education center that will offer undergraduates, faculty, and visiting scholars the opportunity to examine original prints, drawings, and artifacts from the collection. Reynolds affirms his mantra: "the idea that art is essential is a precept that is deeply embedded in our past, current, and future."

Yale's collections have played an unprecedented role in shaping the history of museology in America. Founded in 1832, the Yale University Art Gallery was the first university art museum in the country. After patriot and artist John Trumbull (1756-1843) gave over 100 paintings to Yale College, including a 1792 military portrait of General George Washington, a cornerstone of the collection, Trumbull Gallery was built, using Trumbull's design, to house the paintings. Today a mini-history of revivalist and modern architecture is collapsed within one remarkable campus block. Incongruously attached to Kahn's monument, is Egerton Swartwout's neo-Gothic gallery (1928) inspired by stone vaulted communal structures in Trecento, Tuscany. Nearby we find Paul Rudolph's 'Brutalist' bulwark, School of Art and Architecture Building (1963) on one end, and Kahn's final work, The Yale Center for British Art (1974) anchoring the opposite side of Chapel Street.

The restoration of the Louis Kahn building is part of the University's Master Plan for the Yale Arts Area, a ten-year, $600 million unification strategy intended to benefit not only the university community, but also the people of New Haven. Already completed aspects of the plan include the renovation of the former Jewish Community Center and the construction of a new building to house the Yale School of Art. The renovation of the Swartwout building and the 1866 Street Hall, a Victorian building across High Street, will enlarge exhibition spaces, collection study rooms, and classroom facilities. The History of Art Department, currently housed in Street Hall will be relocated to a new facility designed by architect Charles Gwathmey. "Walking through these buildings -- Kahn, Swartwout, Street -- is a continuous lesson in history, periods, eras," says Helen Cooper, the Holcombe T. Green Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture. "We are looking forward with great anticipation to a new home for American paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts which will house the finest examples of American culture and civilization." Cooper envisions these future American galleries allowing for innovative possibilities and surprising re-connections of the familiar and new. This spirit of flexibility and experimentation bodes well for future curatorial collaborations. Jock Reynolds concurs, "The gallery's incredible collections are like a stable of thoroughbred horses -- we just need to rotate and rest them to maximize their power."
A major touring exhibition of some of Yale's most coveted treasures is scheduled for the renovation phase of 2008-2009. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art 1660-1893 from the Yale University Art Gallery will send more than 200 works rarely seen outside of New Haven to museums in Birmingham, Louisville, and Seattle.