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Optimism and celebration may be rare commodities
in many quarters these days, but for reassurance of good times
ahead, at least in the art world, take a trip down South Street
in Williamstown.
There, the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute, that
venerable Berkshire landmark, offers a striking new piece
of architecture as a harbinger, and the first installment
in a promising new era for its verdant 140-acre campus.
A handsome 32,000 sq. ft. wood and glass structure designed
by Taddao Ando, the Pritzker Prize-winner, with
landscape architects Reed Hilderbrand, the Stone Hill Center
is nestled gracefully into a hillside a short walk from the
buildings familiar to Clark visitors. Approaching the new
building’s main entrance from the south, only one level
is visible.
“The Clark is the only major art museum in the United
States that is located in such a dramatic rural setting, and
Stone Hill Center enables us to use this distinction to provide
an unparalleled ‘art-in-nature’ experience for
the many people who visit the Clark, and the curators, conservators,
scholars and students who work here,” declared Michael
Conforti, the museum’s director. “It’s a
resource that enhances our ability to advance all parts of
our mission—both as a public museum and center for art
historical research, advanced education and professional development.”
In addition to the galleries, the building includes a studio
art classroom, a conference room and an outdoor café.
It also serves as the new home for the Williamstown Art Conservation
Center.
Conforti clearly is delighted with the Stone Hill Center’s
intimately scaled galleries with wall-sized windows, noting
that they create a setting for viewing works of art while
integrating the surrounding countryside and the gradually
changing natural light:
“Visitors arrive at the building via a gentle walking
path through the woods, visit the galleries and sit and relax
on the terrace while they enjoy lunch or a snack [and] take
in a beautiful view of the Green Mountains of Vermont and
the Taconic Range.”
Stone Hill Center is intended to house smaller-scale special
exhibitions of works from the Clark’s collections, as
well as works of art on loan from periods and origins not
usually seen at the museum, such as non-Western and 20th-century
art. The plan is to display sculptures on the grounds surrounding
the building.
Following a gala preview event for members, the new center
was opened to the public for a free family day June 22, with
tours of the new building and its trails and walking paths,
as well as the galleries to view the current shows: “Like
Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness and the Art of Painting
Softly,” “Pictorial Vision: American and European
Photography” and, in the Stone Hill Center, “Homer
and Sargent from the Clark,” offering 12 of the museum’s
masterpieces from Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent.
“The opening of Stone Hill Center is just the beginning
of an incredible future for the Clark as it marks the completion
of Phase I of our campus expansion and enhancement program,”
explained Conforti. He said another new, stand-alone building,
also designed by Ando, and adjacent to the museum’s
current facilities, will house special exhibition galleries,
visitor orientation services and education and conference
spaces. This structure, part of Phase II, is scheduled for
a 2013 debut.
Conforti said the second phase also encompasses the upgrade
and internal expansion of the Clark’s current buildings
and relocation of the parking lots.
The Clark’s research and academic program will be located
entirely within the 1973 building, earlier this year renamed
the Manton Research Center. Conforti said growth of the program
has been greatly accelerated by a gift from the Manton Foundation
in 2007, which included a $50 million endowment for the collection,
research and academic programming, and creation of a study
center for works on paper. The Clark and Williams College
jointly sponsor one of the nation’s leading master’s
programs in art history, and the Clark’s art history
library is among the most comprehensive in the country.
Phase II also promises dramatic changes in the Clark’s
original 1955 neo-classical building. Its suite of traditional
galleries dedicated to the museum’s permanent collection
will be expanded by more than 40 percent, through the transformation
of spaces previously used for offices, storage and other support
functions.
The museum’s collections have grown by more than 25
percent since its founding, according to Conforti, and recent
gifts and acquisitions include a collection of more than 200
18th- and 19th-century English paintings and drawings from
the Manton Foundation. Works by J.M.W. Turner, John Constable
and Thomas Gainsborough were part of this gift. Other notable
recent acquisitions include works of Eugene Delacroix, Camille
Pissarro and Jacques-Louis David.
Complementing the traditional galleries of the 1955 building,
the flexible spaces in the Manton Center and the intimate
galleries attuned to natural surroundings in the Stone Hill
Center, the structure planned for the 2013 opening will offer
large, loft-like flexible galleries with high ceilings and
an open-floor plan to allow for maximum flexibility, and like
the galleries in Stone Hill Center, reflect Ando’s contemporary
design sensibility.
The Williamstown Art Conservation Center, which will enjoy
expanded facilities in the Stone Center, is a non-profit organization,
founded in 1977. It treats objects ranging from historic artifacts
and antiques and heirlooms to some of the country’s
most important paintings, watercolors, drawings, photographs,
sculpture and furniture, serving more than 55 member museums
and historical societies, as well as individuals and corporations.
Total cost of the Stone Hill Center was $25 million. Since
Phase II is in design, the costs are not yet known, Conforti
said, but, similarly to Phase I, building costs in the second
phase of expansion will be funded by a combination of private
and public support, and financing.
The Stone Hill Center is Ando’s first museum project
set within a rural American landscape. Conforti said Ando’s
contemplative style and ability to weave seamlessly architecture
into a natural environment led to his selection for the Clark’s
campus expansion.
He added that selection of Reed Hilderbrand Associates to
work with Ando was based on their deep understanding of New
England’s natural environment and cultural life: “The
firm’s experience in the Berkshires has consistently
emphasized the area’s rural character, including the
types of ponds, trails, meadows and scenic vistas found on
the grounds of the Clark.”
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